


Resurface

by ForMeToPoupon



Series: Reverb [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blanket Fic, Comedy, Erotica, F/M, Gen, Light Drama, Oral Sex, PIV Sex, seasonal allergies but like deadly, the power of friendship is the power to destroy, without the blanket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:56:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForMeToPoupon/pseuds/ForMeToPoupon
Summary: It's the day after Lance and Keith accidentally received an earful from Shiro and Allura, and everyone's pretending like it never happened. Lance decides that this will not stand, and hatches a plot with a few accomplances to get them alone together. However, everything goes wrong when the rain rolls in...OR DOES IT?This story may contain trace amounts of glow-worms, pollen, spelunking, near-drowning, feelings, and other hazards to health and heart.





	Resurface

* * *

 

 

      The worst thing about the fact that it happened, Lance decided, is that it seemed just like it never happened.

       

* * *

       

      The Voltron crew were currently planetside for much needed supply replenishment. As soon as they touched down, tasks were being divvied up without so much as a “how-do-you-do”. They didn’t even have a few requisite minutes to shoot the shit before Coran was excitedly dictating each and every last breath they’d take while on this planet. Lance had lost the thread about five minutes ago, when the older man was discussing how they’d exploit the unique geological features of the planet, and instead turned his attention to the faces of his weird, eclectic space-family.

      Pidge had long since hunkered down right on the grass, fiddling with some device that she would occasionally present to Hunk’s approval or disapproval. Her strange, floating pets surrounded her. They seemed to be wearing little backpacks with blinking lights on them, which Lance found inexplicably adorable. Romelle laid curled beside Pidge like a large, pigtailed cat. Lance was pretty sure she had fallen asleep before Coran had gotten through his first sentence. Keith paid as much attention as he could, but even he could barely repress a yawn or eye roll. Krolia was unreadable as ever. She could be riveted on Coran’s presentation. She could be thinking about food. She could be secretly plotting all of their demises. With a poker face like that, who knew? Shiro and Allura were likewise paying all due attention to the debriefing, which was driving Lance absolutely crazy.

      That was it? No longing looks? No subtle, accidental brushes? Not even a single, significant glance or innuendo thrown in either direction? Had they even said a single word to each other beyond “hello”?

       _What had he just suffered for?_

      “So, it’s settled! Hunk and Pidge will run salvage operations; Keith, Krolia and Shiro will forage and hunt for food above ground; Allura and Romelle will look for caches and resources below it; and the animals will get in valuable grazing time. Okay, break on three!”

      “Wait, what do I do?” Lance asked.

      “You’re with me,” Coran said brightly. “We’re going to the trading post!”

      “There’s a trading post?”

      Coran’s moustache twitched.

      “I can see I did not explain the planet thoroughly enough. Very well, I’ll start over from the top--”

      “No!” Keith blurted, to Lance’s surprise. “We understand. Let’s just go, okay?”

      “Right you are! We’ve wasted enough time here due to Lance’s incessant questions!” Coran said, and started walking briskly towards what Lance assumed was the trading post in question. Lance shared a significant look with Keith, who simply shrugged in response and tapped the helmet he held on his hip. Lance nodded in understanding. They’d talk later, over a secure channel.

      “Okay, team! Now, remember what I said about the flash deluges on this planet! It wouldn’t do to be caught up in one of those, would it? Oh, and the pollen swells! We’re right in the middle of allergy season, and it can be a real killer on this planet! Remember this handy quote, ‘when the air’s yellow, sneezes’ll kill a fellow!’”

      Coran’s voice faded as he quickly moved out of sight. Lance sighed and broke into a jog to catch up. The moment he was sure he was out of visual range of the other groups, he heard a ping on his helmet. He did not hesitate to accept the call.

      “Lance,” Keith said in greeting.

      “Keith,” Lance groaned. “This is a total disaster.”

      “Having to deal with Coran on your own can be tough, but it’s not exactly a disaster,” he said disapprovingly.

      “Not that! Them!”

      “Them?”

      “Those!”

      “Those.”

      “ _They,”_ Lance cried. “I don’t know how I could make it any clearer to you!”

      “I have no clue what you’re talking about, Lance.”

      “Shiro and Allura!”

      “Oh. Them.”

      Lance sighed. This was going to be like pulling teeth.

       

* * *

       

      Keith cast a subtle glance at Shiro as he used his blade to harvest a pepper-like vegetable. Shiro looked better this morning, more rested. Keith knew exactly why, which was not exactly knowledge he was comfortable with having. At least he knew he didn’t have to worry about the older man for another day, Keith reasoned.

      “What about Shiro and Allura?” He whispered into his helmet. Technically he didn’t have to, since the helmets were pretty well sound proofed when operating in reconnaissance mode, but it felt appropriate.

      “Did you notice anything weird?”

      “No. They acted exactly like they usually do.”

      “That’s it! That’s the weird thing!” Lance exclaimed.

      “Acting normal is weird?” Keith said, perplexed.

      “Acting normal after basically declaring their love the night before is weird,” Lance said.

      “They didn’t declare anything.”

      “He said he wanted to fall asleep with her and wake up with her! That’s gotta be love, right?”

      “He said he wanted to fuck her asleep and fuck her awake,” Keith said dryly, trying to divorce his feelings as much as possible to this incredibly painful line of conversation.

      “Aaaahhh!” Lance cried in despair. “Shut up!”

      “I’m just saying, that’s not a declaration of love.”

      “Still, isn’t it weird how they pretty much pretended the other didn’t exist this morning? No small talk, no nothing.”

      “Shiro barely talks to anyone these days,” Keith said. The knot of worry in his chest twisted his voice into something that sounded close to bitterness.

      “Which is fucked up, also. Listen, Keith,” Lance’s voice dropped into a more serious timbre than Keith was accustomed to hearing, “I’m ready to accept that maybe I’m not what Allura needs. I like her enough to recognize that. I’m okay with losing my chance with her to Shiro. What I’m  _not_ okay with, is him just throwing that chance away.”

      “Lance. This is their business and their business only.”

      “Yeah, which is why it’s too important to leave to them! They’re terrible business-people!”

      Keith sighed, staring at the not-pepper plant before him. Coran had mentioned this type of plant also had edible roots. Keith dragged the tip of his knife through the dirt, weighting the pros of more food against the cons of that food being some weird, woody root.

      “Keith, buddy, you must have noticed how much better Shiro looked today. You might not have noticed that Allura looks good too, better than she’s looked since...”

       _Since Lotor,_ he didn’t have to say. Since losing her home and every last physical remnant of her culture and her people, save the lions and the clothes on her back. She had lost so much of what had shaped her as a person in such a short time.

      Keith spared another glance at Shiro, who was in the process of shimmying awkwardly up a tree to gather some delicate looking fruit. Keith briefly switched his helmet to broadcast mode.

      “Going pretty fast for a guy who couldn't even move his arm this morning,” he yelled.

      “Look how good I can move it now!” Shiro yelled back, waving a middle finger in defiance.

      “Is Shiro being fun? Shiro’s never fun around me,” Lance said petulantly in the refuge of their private channel, “You've got little brother privilege.”

      Keith shrugged his shoulders and cast about for his mother. Krolia was up another tree that appeared to have less bruiseable fruit, tossing its spoils lightly to a sheet that was spread on the grass to gather them.

      Keith did a brief double take just to make sure it wasn’t the bed sheet that he had seen Shiro furtively washing this morning. He sighed when he noticed it was a slightly different shade of grey, then turned his attention back to the harvest. He had gotten what he wanted from his plant, so he moved on to the next.

      “So?” Keith finally said.

      “So, little bro! So we gotta get them to at least talk about happened, before Shiro clams back up and Allura remembers that she’s supposed to be nursing a broken heart!”

      “We can’t  _force_ them together,” Keith said. Lance said nothing in response. The silence on the other end of the line became worrisome.

      “Lance?”

      “Maybe we can.”

      “Lance, no.”

      “Listen, shut up! I have a plan!”

      There was a long pause. Shiro slid back down the tree with a bundle of fruit that he carried as carefully as one would carry a newborn,  and gave Keith a thumbs up. Keith returned the gesture and returned to his own task.

      “So, are you going to let me in on this plan any time soon?” Keith murmured after the seconds of silence became minutes.

      “I’m thinking,” Lance said irritatedly.

      “Usually when people say ‘I have a plan’, they usually mean that they actually have a plan.”

      “The people who wait until they’ve actually made a decision to announce are called ‘pessimists’, Keith. I’m an optimist, which means i can say anything at any time so long as I say it positively. I’ll call you back.”

      Keith took off his helmet and tossed it to the side of the growing pile of fresh food. Shiro crouched next to it, sorting the obviously bruised and rotting from the probably okay specimens.

      “How are you feeling?” Keith asked.

      “That’s the third time today you’ve asked me that. Still feeling fine,” Shiro said with a grin.

      “Yeah, but the first two times I asked you lied to me. Are the NSAIDs working?”

      “Like a charm,” Shiro said. He rotated his shoulder to demonstrate.

      “Well, don’t make a habit of this. We only have so many medical supplies and I’d like to reserve them for actual emergencies, not self-inflicted ones.”

      “Ouch,” Shiro said, raising his hand in surrender. “I liked you better when you were younger than me.”

      “Your body is less than two years old at most,” Keith replied. “ and you’ve been in it for only a little while. My  _wolf_ is older than you.”

      “You’re the youngest of the group now,” Krolia finally spoke up. “If i learned anything about humans in the time I was with Keith’s father, it’s that coddling is to be expected.”

      “Now  _you’re_ down on me too?”

      “Until you learn your limits, you must be protected from them,” she said cooly.

      “Mom has a bit of a mom streak,” Keith said with a small smile.

      “I noticed,” said Shiro. Krolia cast a jaundiced eye over him in appraisal.

      “You still have some stiffness. Keep to the ground for now.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a sheepish smile.

      “And don’t let Princess Allura goad you into masturbating for another day or so. You should be resting that arm, not adding additional strain.”

      Shiro’s mouth fell open in horror. Keith scooped up his helmet, slammed it back on his head, and screamed.

       

* * *

        
    These caves were, without a doubt, the creepiest things she had ever been inside. And she had been inside the stomach of actual living things. She had been inside the closest thing to the afterlife that a living soul could enter, and this was  _still_ creepier. For one, the afterlife did not have mysterious piles of what could be guano, or worse, and it didn’t smell unnervingly of burnt _ghurnt_ sprouts. Ten thousand year old supply caches that were most likely picked over long ago could not be worth this.

      “Why are we on spelunker duty again?” Romelle asked.

      “Because we are the strongest. We’re best equipped to deal with any blockages or possible cave-ins.”  _Of course, they could be crushed just as easily as any human by said cave-ins,_ Allura thought but decided that would be counterproductive to actually say.

      “Yeah,” Romelle agreed, “But why are we  _actually_ doing this? You’re the princess! You could be just like, ‘no’, and everyone would have to be, like, ‘okay’.”

      “Because I am part of a team. On a team, everyone is equal. We all pitch in.”

      “You don’t  _have_ to be a part of it. At least you don’t have to be a regular paladin. The original Black Paladin is back, right? So he could go back to Black, and then Keith could go back to Red, and Blue Guy could be Blue again, then you could go back to bossing everyone around or doing whatever it was you did.”

      “Ah,” Allura said. “One question for you, Romelle. How am I to go back to flying the castle and leading operations from the bridge, if the castle no longer exists?”

      “Oh, oh yeah.”

      “‘Oh yeah’,” Allura repeated bitterly. One of Pidge’s floating pets bumbled past her. The  transmitter pack strapped to its furry body blinked steadily.

      “Hey, little buddy. You’ve already been that way. Go this way next,” Romelle said as she gently bumped the creature down another tunnel. She smiled at Allura. “Who knew these guys could be so useful? We got our own living, probably breathing auto-mappers here. We probably don’t even need to be exploring  down here right now! These guys could just crawl through the caverns with their little mappy modules and mark every accessible cache. ”

      “Yes,” Allura said dully. “Who knew we were so unnecessary.”

      “Oh, come on. I didn’t mean it like that,” Romelle said, bumping Allura’s shoulder with her own. “Just because there's a paladin surplus and because the skills you’ve taken a lifetime to master are now obsolete, doesn’t mean you’re not useful!”

      “Thank you, Romelle,” she said, affect completely flat. Romelle suddenly realized that there was a slight, infinitesimal, tiny tiny  _tiny_ chance that her words might be backfiring. She needed backup.

      “Uh, can I borrow your helmet?” she asked. Allura tossed it over without another word, and Romelle immediately put it on. It took her a moment to figure out the communication HUD, and then she was placing an SOS to the team’s emotion specialist. She only had to wait a few seconds after that for him to pick up.

      “Allura? What’s up?” Lance asked.

      “Lance, you’re sad, right?”

      “Romelle? What’s going on? Why are you using Allura’s helmet? And I’m not  _sad.”_

      “Then why do you always wear blue?”

      “I’m no even going to dignify that with a response. Seriously, though, is anything wrong?”

      “I’m calling you because Allura is sad, too. I’ll tell you what I think about that right now: I don’t like it, and I think she should stop. I’m… not the best at feelings, so I don’t know how to actually make her stop.  But you,” she said conspiratorially, “you have a LOT of feelings.”

      “I am known for having feelings,” Lance agreed.

      “So you must have some sort of an idea on how to unsad her.”

      “Unsad?”

      “Encheer. To… Upfeel. To prohappy.”

      “You mean to cheer her up? What kind of messed up colony did Lotor run, that you don’t even know the word for that?”

      “Hey, I don’t criticize how you were raised!”

      Lance sighed. “I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while. How to encheer Allura, mean. I have something like a plan cooking, but I’m going to need your help.”

       

* * *

       

      “I don’t know about this,” Keith said. “What if something goes wrong and they’re trapped?”

      “Then they’ll be trapped together! That’s  _romantic!”_ Lance insisted.

      “Yeah, slowly suffocating to death really  brings people together.”

      “I thought so too,” Romelle said dreamily. “Imagine, them sharing their last breath of air with a kiss…”

      “And then dying,” Keith reminded her.

      “Oh, Shiro can’t die,” Romelle said dismissively.

      “He’s died like twice already,” Keith reminded her. “He’s extremely good at dying.”

      “No, I agree with Romelle. He’s basically the most indestructible dude I’ve ever heard of. The universe has been trying to kill him for like, what, decades? And he’s doing so good at surviving that he even has spares of himself!”

      Keith’s fingers glanced off the faceplate of his helmet as he attempted to rub the bridge of his nose. He stared at the offending digits dully, before letting his hand drop bonelessly to his side.

      “That’s… that’s a complete misrepresentation of his entire situation,” Keith said. “And it’s a tiny bit offensive?”

      “You’re too sensitive, buddy.”

      “I am exactly sensitive enough.”

      “All humans are too sensitive,” Romelle said decisively. “Which is why I trust you two to figure out a way to make Allura less of a… what was the phrase you used, Lance? A comprehensive haul?”

      “‘Total drag’, but that’s taken completely out of context! I didn’t really say that about her,” he insisted to Keith.

      “I know. You’d never say anything bad about her,” Keith said, then paused to reconsider. “On purpose,” he added.

      “So all you have to do, is tell Shiro there’s some mushrooms in the caves that you can’t get to because you’re too… big…” Lance started.

      “He’s bigger than me.”

      “Because you’re too small?” Romelle suggested.

      “I’m about two inches shorter than him now.”

      “Because you’re a scaredy-cat asshole who’s afraid of the dark,” Lance said.

      Keith sighed.

      “How about I tell him they’d be easier on his arm to harvest?”

      “Ooh, brilliant!”

      “Hey, yeah, that’s a much better idea! So it’s decided! Keith makes Shiro go into the caves, Romelle lures Allura into the same cavern and ditches her, and then…”

      “Just because they’ll be together in the same place doesn’t mean they’re just going to magically fall for each other and have all of their emotional wounds healed by the power of  love.” Keith said with a shake of his head. Krolia looked over to him questioningly, but he waved her off.

      “Must you ruin everything?”

      “It’s at least a  _start_ ,” Romelle said.

      “Yeah, it is! Obviously one encounter won’t fix everything, but it might nudge them along the right path and give them something to do other than mope around.”

      “And that “something better to do” might just be each other!” Romelle squeaked excitedly.

      “Would you listen to that, Keith. It turns out you don’t always ruin everything. Sometimes Romelle ruins things, too.”

       

* * *

       

      “Back here?” Shiro called.

      “Back a little further,” Keith said. “That’s where Coran told Lance they’d be. And then he told me. Now I’m telling you.”

      “Hell of a long chain of delegation,” Shiro said to himself. Then, twinkling distantly through the gloom of the cave, he saw them.

      “They glow blue, right?”

      “Yeah, should be blue.” His voice was getting distorted enough through the tunnel that Shiro finally had to put on his helmet to communicate with him. He squeezed his eyes shut as a portion of his peripheral vision was obscured, breathing in through his mouth and out through his nose. A wave of unease seemed to rise from his stomach, threatening to cut off his air. He just had to keep breathing.

      “You okay, Shiro? It looks like it’s gonna rain so we’re going to take a shelter for a little bit. Should be over soon.” Keith’s voice seemed to come from right next to his ear, instead of yards away down an echoing chamber. Shiro focused on it, trying to ground himself. He wasn’t locked in anywhere, he wasn’t being smothered. If he needed to see what was to the left or right, all he had to do was turn his head. He wasn’t trapped in this cave, he could leave at any time he wanted. Slowly the suffocating feeling subsided.

      “I’m fine, you get somewhere safe,” he said roughly. “I can see the mushrooms.” They looked like stars on the horizon, he noticed, then clamped down on the new wave of anxiety that rose when he thought of that.

      “If you’re not feeling well, you don’t have to get them. You could come out,” Keith said. Shiro could hear the concern in his voice, which was comforting but also annoying. He didn’t need Keith to look after him. He could do this. He was a grown-ass man, not some broken child who was scared of the dark and the endless stars.

      “Coran said the rains can get pretty bad, right? I’m as safe in here as I am anywhere else.”

      He trailed his arm along the sides of the cave wall as he walked towards them. Even through his glove, the walls were cool and slick. The sensation grounded him, reminded him that he was in the real world. All of this was weird, but real. One of Pidge’s pets floated past him. The transponder on its back beeped cheerfully. Its cheek markings, so similar to Allura’s, glowed softly. That was real and weird too.

      Shiro willed himself to relax. How could he be nervous when one of these little creatures could putter about the cavern, looking so carefree? He let his hand fall from the wall and followed behind it as it floated aimlessly down the cavern like a cuddly will-o-the-wisp.

      “Almost there,” he said through the helmet. “I’ll grab them and hopefully be out by the time the rain comes, then you’re going to tell me why I was the one who had to go back here.”

      “Because you’re good at mushrooms?”

      “Nice try, Keith, but you’ve been talking to someone on your helmet all day. I know there’s some master plan at work here.”

      “I don’t plan.”

      “Well, that’s concerning. A Black Paladin that doesn’t plan,” Shiro said dryly.

      “I don’t plan… well,” Keith corrected.

      “That’s not true,” Shiro said supportively. Keith sighed.

      “I feel like it’s true some times.”

      “You’re doing great, Keith. I wouldn’t have put you in this position if I didn’t believe you could flourish. My faith in you has never been misguided.”

      Keith said nothing. Shiro knew he’d reply when he could, and not a moment sooner so he didn’t press him. Instead, he followed his fuzzy guide until the cave passage widened into a proper chamber.

      He paused for a minute, letting his eyes and heart rate acclimate to the glow around him. This place was a lot better lit than he expected for a chamber this deep in the rock. Maybe it was because the walls of the cave were smooth but pitted, almost like obsidian glass. The thousand facets of the cave walls reflected the bioluminescence of the mushrooms, making the entire room sparkle.  He felt like he stood in the middle of a massive, glittering geode. When Shiro looked up, he saw more lights dotting the top of the chamber. It almost looked like strings of lights were hung from it in celebration.

      It was nothing like the Astral Plane, when he really looked at It. The knot of anxiety inside him loosened when he realized that. It wasn't like that limbo, the living death. The cavern wasn’t lit with the light of dead stars billions of lightyears away. It was lit by living creatures, close enough for him to touch. It was…

      “Magical,” Allura breathed. Shiro’s head whipped towards the sound in surprise. She stood on the opposite end of the chamber, eyes raised in wonder. She spun slowly around, and Shiro stood enraptured by the sight. He watched how the glow of the cave danced across her skin, how it played in her hair. How it seemed to worship every part of her body it touched, with its soft light.

      If he hadn’t had to clear his throat at that very moment she might have never noticed him. He almost felt bad that he did, as her eyes widened she seemed to turn back from some celestial being into mortal woman once more.

      But, really, wasn’t that what she was? A celestial being trapped in moral form? She came from the stars. She seemed to be made of starlight. He had seen her glow as if she held a thousand suns inside her. Shiro once again felt a swell of nervous energy rise from his stomach. This time it wasn’t fear he felt, it was…

      It was something of the sublime.

      She lifted one finger. He followed it up to the ceiling of the cave, where it seemed that all of stars in the sky had been strung for them.

      “Worms,” she said. Her voice echoed through the cavern. Shiro blinked.

      “Okay?” He said, uncertainly.

      “On the ceiling. Little worms live there. They glow and use those strings to catch prey. My father told me about them, once.”

      That was just about one of the least mystical and most unattractive things he had ever heard. He breathed a sigh of relief, spell broken.

      “What are you doing here?” He asked. She stood far enough away, at the mouth of another passageway leading who knows where, that he had to raise his voice just short of shouting. They had to wait after every phrase for the echoes to die down before speaking again.

      “I’m supposed to be here, but it seems Romelle has ditched me and taken my helmet with her. What are you doing here?”

      “Keith told me that Lance told him that Coran said to get these mushrooms.”

      “Oh. How--”

      “Convoluted? I know.”

      His furry little guide floated towards her. He followed it. She tucked her hands behind her back, turning her body to-and-fro self-consciously as he approached. Was she feeling shy? Was she unsure of where they stood? If she was, then she was in good company because he had no earthly clue what they were to each other right now either.

      Hell, he had no clue how he could possibly be  _anything_ to her, beyond just a friend or comrade. If she was starlight, then he was the darkness that threatened to swallow her whole. Maybe he should tell her that. Maybe he should just go up and apologize to her for polluting her  image by association.

      It’s not like he felt he was unworthy of her or anything but he was certain that the universe didn’t agree. If it did, then why weren’t they already together? Too many things had happened to make that seem impossible. Too many circumstances conspired to make sure they had just never sat down and hashed things out, and now it almost felt too late. It didn’t matter how well he thought he fit with her. Things weren’t that simple. Maybe he should just turn around, go back to Keith, and smack him in the back of the head for this obvious set-up.

      “Allura,” he began, “I--”

      And that’s when he fell through the floor.

       

* * *

       

      Allura blinked rapidly.

      “Shiro?” she said, voice querulous. Did she just imagine him here? Was her desire to see him so great that she hallucinated the entire encounter? But then she heard the splashing. That was no vision, that was a real, drowning man!

      “Shiro!” she cried, and ran towards the sound of him struggling. She had almost reached  the place where he disappeared before realizing.

      “This was very du--umbb!” She yelled as she too fell into the small hole that neither of them had noticed at first. It bored straight through the rock of the cave floor into the chamber below, a large underground cistern. She hit the water with a graceless splash, and immediately kicked towards the surface.

      “Allura!” Shiro was yelling as her head cleared the water. She heard him splash towards her, but she couldn’t see him. The only light in this new chamber came through the hole that she had just fallen through. It hovered above her several feet in the air, completely unreachable.

      Luckily Shiro had been wearing his armor and helmet when he fell. The material that paladin armor was surprisingly low density, for what it was, and would help him stay aloft somewhat, though it was no substitute for an actual flotation device.  It would protect him from being buffeted by any underground currents and the helmet would protect him from drowning, though perhaps not from asphyxiation. She had no such protection. Why had she let Romelle borrow her helmet again? Just because she asked?

       _If this little misadventure teaches me anything,_ Allura told herself,  _it’s that sometimes it’s okay to say “No” for no absolute reason._

      She felt something touch shoulder from behind. She yelped and kicked back, only realizing that it was Shiro when she heard the “oof” and splash of him slipping back under the water’s surface.  She moaned in misery. The water resistance robbed her kick of much of its power, but even underwater a kick from her was powerful enough to knock the wind right out of a human.

      Which it had.

      She dove after him, arms outstretched. She wouldn’t be able to see him in the frigid darkness of the cave, but she would be able to at least feel him. She kicked down towards where she assumed he would have been pushed, and when she didn’t feel him right away, she turned her steep dive into a more shallow, wide spiral. She had to kick hard to overcome the buoyancy of her armor. It was surprisingly hard work, even for a body as conditioned as hers was. After a few more seconds of finding nothing, he redoubled her efforts.

      She still couldn’t find him.

      Her lungs started to burn and her heart thumped in panic. He had to be here! He had to! She swam down, down until instinct took hold, forcing her back to the surface. Her kicks lost power as the burning sensation spread through her chest. It was too much, too much! She gasped, involuntarily drawing a lungful of water. Her legs were leaden, panic gripped and arrested her movement. Her eyes were wide open, but there was nothing to see. Her mouth was open, but there was nothing but--

      Air! She gasped painfully as her head broke the water. She had somehow reached the surface after all, thanks I'm no small part to her armor,  but something was still wrong. She still couldn’t breathe. She could feel an arm wrap around her, but distantly, as if her mind was miles away from her body.

      “Allura!” Shiro shouted in her ear, “You have to hold on to me!” But she couldn’t. She was coughing convulsively and her limbs just wouldn’t move. Shiro tried to maneuver her to free his one hand, but she just couldn’t do what he asked of her. He kicked back, laying flat on his back, draping her over his stomach. Coughs painfully racked her body as it tried to purge the fluid from her lungs. Shiro pawed at his helmet with his one hand, but the choppiness of the water and Allura’s own convulsions on his chest made it next to impossible. He gave up on it, and instead wrapped his arm around her, propping her head on his shoulder and struggling to keep them both above water.

      He realized he could hold them up like this forever, especially since the exhaustion of yesterday hadn’t fully bled itself from his bones. He forced himself to stop churning the water, relaxing once again into a back float, and adjusting Allura’s position so she was safe and clear of the water as possible. She shuddered against him, still coughing occasionally as water splashed in her mouth, but she was out of danger for the most part now. He moved his upper body as little as possible, giving Allura time to recover.

      Now what?

      His helmet was partially underwater, otherwise he’d listen to hear if there was more splashing in one direction or the other as if that might be an indication of which way to go. Right now, any direction was as likely to lead to shore as any other direction. He should just stay like this until she was well enough to swim on her own.

      He looked down at her and even through the near-darkness he imagined he saw a purple tinge to her lips. He didn’t think they could stay like this that long, so that plan was officially moot. He tried his helmet again, and this time was able to lift it off. He left it partially on the top of his head, praying to whatever deity who would listen that it wouldn’t dislodge and float away, as he maneuvered Allura’s into position.

      Then, as quickly as he could, he slid the helmet off his head and on to hers. It took a lot more fumbling, and more coughing, than he’d like, but eventually he was able to get it on her. He pressed the seals on the side, and sighed in relief as he saw her breath start to fog the glass. He pressed another button on the side of the helmet to start the emergency rebreather. Luckily, it seemed like she was no longer coughing and the water that had been trapped in the helmet when he put it on her was soon purged by the helmet’s emergency system. Now he didn’t have to worry about her drowning in her own vomit or in the scant inches of water trapped in the helmet.

      He kicked out of the back float and resumed treading water. Allura seemed to be completely blacked out, limp against his shoulder, but she floated well enough. He squinted around the cavern, trying to find any promise of a shore. There was nothing but the glowing opening above. He listened for the sounds of waves upon a ledge he could pull them up into, or perhaps a shore. Instead he heard more running water. He felt droplets on his head. He looked up to see more water coming in from above.

      Of course. Keith had said it looked like it was going to rain. It looked like he was about to learn the meaning of the word “deluge” first hand.

      The first wave hit.

       

* * *

       

      “Wow. It’s really coming down out there,” Hunk observed from the makeshift weather shelter he and Pidge had quickly erected from bits of old ship cladding. Sure, the drydock they were picking their way through had a roof, but that roof was solid in much the same way as a slice of swiss cheese was solid. The original structure was built to be impervious to the planet's unstable climate, then he'd have to say this late form of it was very pervious indeed.

      They had been scavenging for spare parts and the odd working piece of tech from the old Altean facility.  Normally that'd be a piece of cake, since both Hunk and PIdge knew advanced Altean security systems frontwards and backwards and could quickly handle what bits of security were still working after all these years. The difficulty came in the fact that it had been abandoned long enough to develop its own little ecosystem. It was a testament to Altean material engineering and the ghost stories that the locals told about this place that anything of use still remained after all this time. Hunk could barely even find evidence of heavy vandalism, just a few mystical looking symbols obviously painted by teenagers with more imagination and spare time than sense. And, of course, dicks. There were a lot of graffitied alien dicks around here.

      “I’m worried about the forager and cave teams,” he yelled over the patter of rain.

      “They’ll be fine,” Pidge said, though a frown still creased her normally smooth brow, “unless they do something very stupid.”

      “The foragers have Shiro and the cave team has Allura. Two of the most responsible people I know,” Hunk said with a relieved sigh. “Speaking of, did they seem a bit weird to you this morning?”

      Pidge tilted her head in consideration.

      “Well, they weren’t speaking to each other but that’s hardly unusual. Shiro doesn’t speak to anyone these days.”

      “I don’t know. It just seemed like they were a little… Cold.”

       

* * *

       

       _Cold. It’s cold._ That was her first thought upon waking, before she even realized she was awake. Allura returned to life slowly. Everything seemed to burn, from her legs to her lungs, and oddly enough to her nostrils as well. Her face was pressed up against something cold and smooth, and she could feel her own breath on it. Her eyes fluttered open, but she saw nothing but darkness. Beneath one hand, she felt a substrate that seemed to consist of smooth pebbles and what could only be described as disgusting, slimy slop. She fisted her hand in it. It was cold. Beneath her other hand, she felt the rise and fall of another living body.

      It too, was worrisomely cold.

      She sat upright on wobbling arms. She fumbled with the helmet, then breathed a sigh of relief as it came free. She coughed several times as fresh, cool air replaced the stale, recycled air in her lungs. She placed the helmet nearby her thigh, close enough for her to feel if it suddenly rolled or was knocked away. She turned her attention to the body beside her. She ran her hands along it, searching by feel for any cuts or obvious breaks, anything that she could treat right there. Everything felt right, except for the body’s temperature and the shallowness of its breathing.

      Allura could feel cold water lap against her legs. She had no idea where she was. She shut her eyes—more out of weariness than out of necessity as the darkness around her was nearly absolute. She tried to remember where she was, and how she had gotten there.

      Her hand absentmindedly brushed through her companion’s hair. It was short, waterlogged. She drew her fingers back down a smooth forehead, to a furrow in the middle of their brow. She followed that brow to a sharp cheekbone, and down an angular chin. She dragged her finger back up, catching it on a pair of cold, chattering lips. Finally she came to the nose, and she traced the scar along it.

      She knew who he was almost as soon as she touched him, but now it was undeniable.

      “Shiro,” she whispered. “How could I let this happen?”

       

* * *

       

      “How could we let did this happen? What have we done? What have we  _done?”_ Lance moaned.

      “Calm down. We have nothing to worry about,” Keith reassured him.

      “Listen, I’m sitting in the comfort of the most twee-ass cafe I’ve ever been in, but they’re stuck in a cave in this shit! What if it floods?”

      “It’s not going to flood. And if it does, Shiro and Allura are smart enough to get out of there. They’ll be fine.”

      “They why aren’t they answering my calls?”

      “Could be busy,” Romelle piped up. “As in  _busy.”_

      “Shut one hundred percent up, Romelle,” Lance said in agony.

      “Listen, Lance. I’m in a cave right now and I’m just fine. There’s just a little surge of water every once and awhile. Nothing enough to get swept away in. The chamber they’re in is even higher than mine is, so they’re completely safe. Maybe just a little bit cold at the very worst,” she said with a shiver.

      “What are you talking about so intently over here?” Coran asked, setting a steaming coffee adjacent drink in front of Lance. He dropped his helmet in his lap guiltily, and reached for the drink. He wrapped his hands around it immediately and brought it to his lips.

      “Careful there! That’s hot. You could burn yourself,” Coran warned.

      “If I burn myself, then I deserve it,” Lance said to a flabbergasted Coran.

      “Why would you think that?” He asked, perplexed. This sort of performative self loathing was not his favorite—second favorite—tied-for-third favorite paladin’s style. Lance’s face scrunched up into a portrait of pain, then smoothed.

      “You haven’t even had a sip yet, what was that look of agony for?” Coran asked.

      “It was my  _emotions,”_ Lance moaned. “Coran, I need to come clean about something with you, but I need your guarantee that you’ll let me leave here alive if I tell you about it.”

      “What did you do?” Coran asked in dawning suspicion and horror.

      “It all started yesterday evening,” Lance began.

       

* * *

       

      Allura paused to wipe her brow. Normally this sort of exertion was no problem for her, but somehow dragging Shiro’s legs out of the water, and the rest of his body somewhere reasonably dry had drained her. She felt incredibly weak, as if she had just been through some sort of grueling ordeal. Her legs didn’t move as well as they should. She turned her head to where the sound of rushing water came from.

      A grueling ordeal, apparently, was exactly what had just happened.

      She touched Shiro’s forehead again. It still felt cool. She held a hand in front of his lips. She could barely feel the puffs of air on the, even though the water on her hands should have made them extra sensitive to air currents. She ran her hand through his hair again. He shivered at the contact.

      No, it wasn’t her that was making him shiver. He was doing all that on his own. Allura swore softly. She knew what she had to do. She also knew that the longer she hesitated, the more her her mind would make up reasons to keep her in a state of inaction . Meanwhile, Shiro’s ability to regulate his body temperature would get weaker and weaker.

      Allura slapped her cheeks with two open palms, twice. She was an adult. She had seen him naked before. She had seen him  _cum_ before. This was a survival situation. There was no reason to be nervous.

      “Shiro, I know you can’t hear me, but I’m sorry,” She said. She dragged him into a sitting position, and reached around to unfasten his chest plate.

      He flopped back down.

      She dragged him up again, propping him up against her shoulder. He slid down the opposite direction. She looked at him in betrayal as he laid there, inert, face down on the cave floor.

      “Alright, Shiro,” She said through her teeth that were beginning to chatter as the ambient temperature seemed to drop. “You want to do this the hard way?”

      She straddled his lap then pulled him back into a sitting position, only this time she wrapped her legs around his torso before it could flap back down. He began to slip away regardless and she tightened her legs around him, stopping him before he could flop all the way down. Her cheeks burned. Her groin was pressed up against his stomach, his belt rubbing her in a particularly interesting way every time she shifted. But this was the only way to hold him still as she made quick work of the armor on his upper body and shoulders. Now, with the armor gone, he’d warm up much faster, she thought triumphantly. And that’s when she felt it.

      There was a large gash on the back of his suit.

      She sent a quick pulse of quintessence through him, trying to see if she could find any injuries that way. She had not been trained in this, but her experience with healing Lance and the Balmera had taught her that low enough pulses of quintessence could act as rudimentary med scans. The quintessence would naturally go wherever it was needed most. She sighed in relief as it sank into the muscles of his remaining arm before dispersing along his body evenly. He was sore, obviously, and cold, but the rent on the back of his armor hadn’t been deep enough to do more than score his skin. She loosened her legs slightly as the adrenaline left her system.

      Wait.

      The under-suit had been compromised.  _That’s_ why he wouldn’t warm up.

      The suit was designed for brief vacuum exposure, as well as terrestrial extremes. That meant it was well insulated from the cold of space, but also was able to wick moisture away from the body in warmer environments. It kept the skin dry and protected, and body temperature regulated. If it got wet on the outside, the impermeability of the outside layers meant that it would dry quickly.

      That is, unless it was compromised. Then it would absorb water,  _a lot of water._ Not only would the extra weight compromise the buoyancy of the hardsuit, it would also completely defeat the purpose of insulation. The suit would cool down quickly, and stay that way. The number of calories required to bring it back up to body temperature was exponentially larger when compared to normal clothing.

      It had to come off.

      She shivered again as she unfastened his zipper, and pulled it down as far as she could without letting go of him. Then she laid him back down on the cave floor. She said a brief prayer to Shiro’s spirit, wherever it was in that body, asking forgiveness for what she was about to do. She hopped on her knees down his body, undressing him quickly, efficiently, and as brainlessly as possible. She didn’t even squeak as her hand brushed his flaccid penis as she unzipped him, but she did redouble her efforts after that. She yanked on his pant legs so hard it almost sent him sprawling back into the water, which would have made this entire exercise completely pointless.

      Finally, he was naked.

      Allura collapsed beside him, curiously winded.

      “Okay,” she said out loud. “So, I did that.” After a moment, she got to her feet, feeling around with the toe of her boots for the edge of the water while her hands quested for the cave walls. She could still hear the rushing water of the deluge sweep past her, carried on to chambers unknown. It was a miracle that they had been deposited on this vantage point after being swept away. They could have just been carried away with rest of the water that the planet had seen fit to dump on them, buffeted against the cavern stalagmites, slammed against its walls, held down--

      She quickly pulled the emergency brakes on that train of thought. Not helpful. They had survived so far, and it was best to  leave it at that.

      Still, she didn’t know how long this area would stay safe. What if the chamber was slowly flooding, even as she searched for an exit? The thought stopped her in her tracks. What if the water rose enough to sweep Shiro’s unconscious body away while she was off, gadding about?

      She quickly scrambled back to where she thought she had left Shiro. She tripped over his foot and was almost sent sprawling back into the frigid water. That’s when she felt it. A cold shock of wind followed by a pins-and-needles sensation across her buttocks that she hadn’t even noticed had gone numb while she had been stripping Shiro. She knew what that meant: her suit had been compromised, too.

      “Fuck,” she whispered, princess-like.

       

* * *

       

      “They  _what?”_ Coran practically roared. Lance waved his hands around for silence, glancing from side to side to see if anyone in the cafe had overheard. The rain had slowed down to a light downpour, so conversations would be easily overheard. Luckily, there were few patrons in the cafe right now, most of them had gone home as soon as the weather had shown hints of turning damp. None of the remaining customers seemed to be paying any attention to them. Lance exhaled in relief, then sucked in another deep breath to fortify himself for the trials ahead.

      “It’s not like they  _fuck_ fucked, but...” he whispered.

      “A mind shag is still a shag!” Coran said, and Lance winced. He wasn’t shouting anymore, but he was still speaking a lot louder than Lance was comfortable with.

      “Listen, they’re both consenting adults and we thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to...”

      “‘You thought’,” Coran repeated, “More like you didn’t think! How could getting the Princess embroiled in another ill-timed, ill-considered emotional entanglement benefit her in any way? In what universe would that be restorative?!”

      “In this universe, hopefully!”

      “Relationships don’t work that way! They’re not supposed to be a replacement for spiritual healing or professional intervention! If she moves on before she’s ready, then she’s just going to be using him as an emotional crutch!”

      “Maybe not an emotional crutch, but--”

      “Or an emotional air cast!”

      “She’s not using him--”

      “An emotional prosthetic!”

      “Would you stop it with the emotional mobility aids? My point is, something happened between them last night and we’re just trying to make sure they at least talk about it.”

      “Oh, sure,  _talking_ is going to be what’s on their minds. If their encounter was anything like how you described it--”

      “Please never make me describe anything like that to you every again, by the way.”

      “If it’s in any way similar, then talking is going to be the last thing on their minds!”

      “Hey, they’re both complex people,” Lance said defensively. “They’re capable of thinking beyond just base urges like ‘kill, eat, mate’!”

      “You’d think so,” Coran said darkly, remembering what he had been like at that age, “You’d  _really_  think so.”

       

* * *

       

      He was being squished to death by a warm, heavy marshmallow, and the worst part was he couldn’t even eat it. Every time he brought his lips to it it would make a weird noise and wiggle away. There was probably a metaphor in that, but his dream-self was not interested in metaphors. His dream-self was interested in marshmallows.

      He tried to reach out, to hold it in place but he found to his mild surprise that he only had one arm. This would things more difficult, but his foster families had not raised a quitter. He wrapped his arms around the middle of the marshmallow and squeezed it flat against himself, earning himself a most un-marshmallow-like squeak. He felt himself harden as it squirmed in his grip, which was somehow more surprising than him being short of an arm.

      Apparently he sexually interested in marshmallows. Who knew.

      “Shiro! Stop!” It hissed.

      That was no marshmallow.

      “Who?”

      “Shiro it’s me! Stop trying to eat my hair!”

      That was an Allura. Apparently he was sexually interested in those as well. His awareness returned to him gradually, though it seemed to stick on the fact that he could feel her bare breasts against his chest, and the interesting side-note that her long legs bracketed his own. Their stomachs were pressed together, and he could feel her bare labia rub against his…

      Shit. She had labia. He suddenly was filled with an acute awareness of what that meant.

      Shiro sat up quickly, dislodging her entirely. He heard her indignant squeaks as she rolled away from him, and a splash as she hit… water? Where were they? Why was it so dark? He heard more splashing as she struggled back towards him.

      “You’re lucky that only my legs got wet, you beast!” she said. She was angry. Why was she angry?

      “Allura, what’s going on?”

      “Shiro, you don’t remember? Are you alright?” Her voice seemed to melt into something soft, warm. Inviting. If her voice didn’t go back to sounding angry again, and soon, his pending erection would decide to permanently set up shop and that would be awkward for everyone involved. That was even ignoring the fact that she had had a vulva and everything. That she was ready to...

      He felt a small, cool hand press against his abdomen. He hissed as if he had just been touched by a block of solid ice, and scrambled back through the muck of the… of the wherever he was.

      “Sorry, sorry!” She said quickly. “I can’t see anything and you keep moving around!”

      He hadn’t moved a single inch before she touched him, but he decided to keep that to himself to spare her the embarrassment.

       _She has a vulva right now,_ his mind helpfully reminded him. _And probably the vagina to go with it._ Yo _u could get inside that,_ his dick contributed.

      He cleared his throat. Just because they had brought each other to orgasm yesterday, and just because he had accidentally told her about a quarter of his sexual fantasies about her and yet somehow that hadn’t frightened her completely away, and just because they had woken up together naked, with the very real evidence of her arousal pressed against him, doesn’t mean she wanted to have sex with him.

      If she wanted to have sex with him, she’d just say so. And she hadn’t. Before they had met in the cave, they hadn’t said a single thing to each other beyond a casual greeting. He had been waiting for her to bring last night up, but was unwilling to confront her with anything she wasn’t ready to talk about. He had waited and waited, but she didn’t say a thing. Then Coran split them up, and that was that. She didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t want to acknowledge it, and she  _certainly_ didn’t want to act on any of the things he had told her he wanted to do.

      Didn’t she?

      “You were cold,” she was saying quietly. He refocused his attention on her words instead of their bodies, “and your suit was torn. So was mine. The temperature was dropping, and...”

      “Sharing body warmth,” he said in relief. “You did the right thing.”

      “Of course I did,” she said stiffly. But he could hear a tremor in her voice, as if she was trying to speak through chattering teeth.

      “Do you remember how we got here?” She asked. It took a moment, but Shiro nodded.

      “I fell through a hole in the cavern, you fell after me. You kicked me--”

      “On accident!”

      “--Then almost drowned trying to save me. I was trying to find some way out of the water, we got caught in some sort of current caused by other chambers flooding, I guess? We must have been washed up on some sandbar or something. Its pure luck that both of us didn't die. And now, uh. Now we're naked.”

      “Body warmth,” Allura reminded him.

      Shiro turned toward her voice and realized he could see her markings glowing dimly in the darkness. Their glow was usually only noticeable during complete blackouts, so that wasn't unexpected, but they should have been brighter than this. He could also see the pink flash in her eyes. He had previously assumed that flash was her  _Tapetum Lucidum_ , the same kind as cats and owls had, but that tissue could only reflect light. It didn’t emit it. He swept his eyes lower. He could faintly make out her body markings, the ones that had been pulsing with light last night. His eyes snapped back up to hers. There was something wrong.

      He reached his hand out, and she gasped and jumped a little when it made contact with her cheek. It was cool. He ran his thumb over her markings. They were cool, too.

      “You’re still cold,” he said quietly.

      “Yes,” she agreed.

      “I think these are supposed to be brighter,” he said, brushing a hand down the markings that ran down the elegant column of her neck.

      “Yes.”

      “Why aren’t they?”

      It took her a moment to respond.

      “I’ve been… You were so cold. Body warmth wasn't working.  I’ve been warming us both with quintessence.”

      “I see. You’ve drained yourself.”

      She shook her head.

      “Not drained,” she argued quietly. “I’ve used a lot of it but I’m not… I still have more.”

      “Your reserves should be massive. Enough to bring a planet-sized entity back to life,” enough to bring  _him_ back to life, he didn’t say.

      “Yet you’re burning low,” he murmured. He ran a thumb along the markings on her collarbones. They sparked a little brighter in the wake of his touch, but soon returned to their dim state. He stared at the reaction, and did it again.

      “That’s something,” he said.

      She held her breath but didn’t say anything more. He continued to explore her body, alternating pressure and types of strokes to see if that affected how much she glowed. He found that light strokes would leave a lingering glow, while pressing down would ignite a brief spark that would ripple through her like a drop of water disturbing a smooth pool, but it would quickly die off. Continued pressure would do nothing, but a hovering touch would seem to draw light to the surface of her skin, just as light suction on skin would draw blood to darken its surface. After a few minutes of experimentation, he searched for the pink glow of her eyes in the darkness.

      She was close. Close enough that he could feel her uneven breathing. He leaned in, giving her enough time to withdraw if she wanted to, and kissed one of her cheek markings. He leaned back just far enough to observe her reaction.

      The marking glowed bright enough to illuminate her entire face. Her eyes were wide, riveted to him. Her lips were parted. Her brows were drawn together in uncertainty and…

      And she leaned back in and kissed him on the lips.

      His had went immediately to the back of her head. Her lips were so cool, but as they kissed he could feel them warm. It felt like… it felt like how it had looked when he had drawn the light from her body. It felt like she was pulling something from him, but it didn’t hurt. On the contrary, it filled him with warmth, with a tingling sensation that would feel almost spiritual if it didn’t also fill him with a very physical longing.

      The kiss barely lasted a half  second, and was nothing more than a brief, dry meeting of lips. Even so, it was one of the best kisses he had ever had.

      “What was that?”

      “Quintessence transferal. I think,” she said quietly. “I’ve never actually done it with another conscious, willing creature.”

      He realized her entire body was outlined with a slight glow now. He ran his hand down her arm, and the glow swirled around it with a liquid grace. It wasn't just her markings that glowed. It was her. He cupped her cheek in his hand, and kissed her again. When he drew back, he could see her almost as well as he had seen her in the cavern above them. He smiled, and from her answering smile--small, uncertain, brighter than anything he’d ever seen--he knew that she could see him now, too.

      He leaned down for another kiss, this time just a light peck that left starglow behind it. The flesh beneath his hand even felt subtly warmer, as if the light that filled her was from a distant hearthfire. It felt like home, though he hardly knew how he recognized that feeling. It warmed him in a way that real fires didn’t.

      He kissed her again, on the forehead this time, and the feeling didn’t subside. He buried his head in her hair, half out of embarrassment for his own thoughts, and half because he just wanted to. He felt her breath against his collarbone, bringing warmth there, too. After a moment, he pulled away. He bent down and kissed her one last time.

      “I have a plan,” he said into her lips.

       

* * *

        
    “I have a plan!” Pidge said excitedly as she waved a small data chip above her head. Hunk raised his own head to stare at her from across the partially enclosed ship graveyard. She was far enough away that she just looked like an over-enthusiastic beansprout to him.

      “What?” he yelled. The cavernous space seemed to swallow sound, even as the rain on the decaying rooftop made a din similar to the noise a nine-armed _ylmox_ \--a race infamous for their surplus of limbs and deficit of rhythm--would make if given a set of steel drums.

      “No, "plans" plural! Plans! Ship plans!”

      Hunk cupped his hand around his ear and shook his head. She was yelling something about plants? Green must really be getting to her, he decided.

      Pidge hopped down from her perch on the summit of a jagged spire of metal, on what must have been some sort of control tower once, and slid down the entire structure on her back. Hunk drew in a breath through his teeth. That was just  _asking_ for tetanus. Or worse,  _space tetanus._

      She sprang back up as soon as she reached the bottom, still waving the chip in the air as she wove through the minefield of sharp metal, puddles of rainwater, and corrosive chemical spills that littered the derelict yard.

      “Pidge, you’re going to give me a heart attack,” Hunk moaned as he stood up from his own task--finding every last bit of copper and precious metal that he could and otherwise stripping the engines of everything that made them engines--and jogged to meet her half way.

      “Plans!” She repeated excitedly. “This is a database of all the ships that had ever come here for repairs, for scrap, for retrofits, for everything! We can adapt some  _serious shit_  from this!”

      “Yeah, we could! Uh, just one problem. How are we going to do that without, oh,  _someplace to actually put the lions?_ We’re kind of garage-less at the moment. _”_

      Pidge’s face fell. Hunk scratched the back of his neck.

      “Sorry, Pidge, I don’t mean to be like a total asshole, but--”

      “You’re right,” she said, pocketing the chip. “We’ll just have to wait until we get home to make the most of these bad boys. How much longer will it be?”

      Hunk shrugged. Pidge stuck her tongue in between her teeth in thought, then shook her head.

      “If only  _someone_ hadn’t restricted the date and calendar functions in my lion…”

      “Hey, I only did that because you kept on checking it like every three hours! It’s not like constantly checking it would make us go any faster, anyway. All you were doing was worrying yourself sick!”

      Pidge shook her head.

      “Okay, you were worrying  _me_ sick,” Hunk amended. “Look at me, look how sallow my skin is! I practically have an ulcer now from all that stress. Do you see my teeth? Ground to nubs!” He pulled his lips down to show her, but her attention was on a particularly interesting rock beside her feet. Just ripe for the kicking.

      “And the coalition fan message boards call Shiro the ‘space dad’,” she murmured before sending the rock on an adventure, careening around the yard. Hunk winced as it bounced off no more than three unsteady structures, sending cascades of rust and small parts to the floor.

      “Would you stop!”

      “I just want to get home, okay! Maybe there’s something in these files that will help us do that,” she said.

      “Yeah, but we don’t have time for complete retrofits. I know how you’re feeling, Pidge, but we have to keep upgrades small and manageable for now. Stuff we can do on the literal fly.”

      “Now you’re  _really_ acting like Shiro.”

      “At least someone is,” Hunk said moodily, then winced as he noticed the ‘gotcha’ expression on her face.

      “Interesting sentence you just said there, Hunk,” she said coyly.

      “No...”

      “It would be a shame if someone were to…”

      “Nooooo…”

      “Tell Shiro about it!” She said with a laugh, scooping up her helmet and clapping it on her head before Hunk could snatch it from her.

      “Shiro!” She said, bypassing the call interface by opening a direct channel. “Hunk said something mean! Also, what’s the latest ETA on getting home?”

      Silence greeted her. She batted Hunk’s hands away from her as he circled her, moaning in mock agony, and held up a hand for quiet. Her face lost its mischievous cast as she said his name several times, before settling into a look of worry. Hunk stopped immediately, mid-hop, then slowly put his foot down as his play-anxiety twisted into real anxiety.

      “Maybe it’s interference,” he offered. Pidge shook her head.

      “There’s no static or anything on this end. Either the signal isn’t getting through at all, or…”

      “He could just be not wearing it.”

      “I sent an alert tone to the helmet. You know how loud those are, right?”

      Hunk knew. Early in the war they had once pranked Coran by hiding a helmet in the ducts above his room and setting off the alert tone. He practically tore the room apart trying to find the origin of the piercing, obnoxious beep sound.

      “Keep trying, I’ll ask Keith,” he suggested, donning his own helmet. It only took Keith a few moments to respond.

      “Yeah, Hunk?”

      “Hey, Keith. Is Shiro with you?”

      There was a beat of silence.

      “I can’t hear head shakes over the comm,” Hunk reminded him.

      “Oh, right. No, he’s not with me. We got separated when he went to go look for mushrooms in a cave. I’m just waiting for the rain to stop to go get him.”

      “Why’d you split up like that?” Hunk asked.

      “That’s… privileged information,” Keith responded uncertainty.

      “Come on, man! Don’t go all Blade of the Galra on me!”

      “Marmora,” Keith corrected automatically, “and I had my reasons.”

      “Were they good reasons?”

      “They were,” Keith began, then sighed, “They were extremely bad.”

      Hunk sighed. “Pidge, he’s not with Keith,” he called through the open faceplate of his helmet.

      “He’s still not picking up, though,” she said back. “Have Keith try.”

      “Did you hear that?” Hunk asked.

      “Yeah. I don’t see why he’d pick up a call from me and not you,” Keith said.

      A moment passed. Pidge shook her head and patched her connection to the other two. Now they could talk without her shouting over the sound of rain pounding against the roof

      “Nope, not picking up for me, either. I told you. Don’t know why you would think he’d answer my call and not yours.”

      “But you’re the favorite,” Pidge said.

      “I’m not the favorite.”

      “Please. If you don’t think you’re the favorite then you just haven’t been paying attention.”  
“I’m not,” he insisted. “Am I?”

      “Oh yeah,” Hunk said. Pidge made her own noise of agreement. “Has Shiro had a single personal conversation with you since he revived?”

      “Kind of,” Keith admitted.

      “See? You’re the favorite,” Pidge said.

      “Maybe Shiro’s just incredibly traumatized right now and isn’t ready to have casual conversations!”

      “Nobody’s saying he isn’t, but we _are_  saying that you have access to him like nobody else does. But it’s all a moot point right now,” Hunk said, “because even you can’t get through to him.”

      “He talks to Allura. Or, has talked, at least once. They’ve had a conversation. Don’t ask me what about,” Keith said darkly.

      “Why would I ask?” Pidge said.

      “So maybe Allura knows where he is right now.”

      “What? Those two thoughts don’t match up at all,” Hunk said in confusion.

      “Doesn’t hurt to try. I’m calling Allura,” Pidge said.

      “Why would she know where he is, if they’ve only had one conversation in the recent past? What’s going on here?”

      “Don’t worry about it.”  
“Dude, worrying is my whole thing.”

      “Allura’s not picking up either,” Pidge said.

      “Shit,” Keith said under his breath, but the helmet picked it up as clear as day.

      “I’m tripping the alarm on her helmet too,”

      It only took a moment for the new connection to join the channel. The three paladins could hear water raging in the background, and a few coughs, but other than that the new connection was incommunicado.

      “Allura?” Hunk asked tentatively.

      “What do you want?” Rommelle asked, “I’m trying to not freeze to death in here and you are seriously ruining my concentration.”

      “You’re not Allura,” Hunk observed.

      “Uh…”

      “Romelle,” Keith said. “I think it’s time to come clean about why you have the helmet.”

      Romelle sighed heavily. A big storm was about to roll in, and it wasn’t the kind that came with rain.

      “Alright, allow me to illuminate the situation...”

       

* * *

 

       

      Shiro and Allura inched down the cave passage, Allura in the lead with Shiro following close enough behind her that they were bumping into each other with practically every step. Every few feet, he had to stop to press a kiss into her hair, or her skin, to rekindle her glow and each time he did the result was dimmer and shorter in duration. Allura sighed in frustration.

      “This isn’t working,” she said.

      “Are you running out of energy? We can stop and rest until you feel better,” Shiro said in concern.

      “It’s not  _energy_  that’s the problem,” she said as he placed another dry kiss on the back of her neck. Her skin barely sparked this time. “It’s...this.”

      “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to do this with me, but it’s the only way we can see where we’re going.”

      “It’s not that I don’t want t--,” she began, then abruptly pinched off that line of thought with a shake of her head. “We should try our equipment again.”

      Shiro nodded, and she was close enough to actually feel the gesture. He unknotted the bindle he had made of their tattered undersuits that he had wrapped around his hips to create a crude, incredibly awkward fanny pack. Their armor clattered to the ground and he scrambled to make sure that the pieces didn’t roll away too far. Her glow had gotten so weak that finding the pieces would be very difficult, even if they weren’t washed away by the stream of water that ran from chamber to chamber in this level of the cave.

      It had taken almost both of their suits to create a sack big enough to hold both sets of armor, and the rest of the tatters had gone into fashioning a loincloth for Shiro.  Though he felt guilty for being the only one with clothes, even clothes as rudimentary as these were, but it was really only practical. Of the two of them, he was the only one who couldn’t just seal his genitals back into his body. He shook his head, steering his mind firmly from that train of thought.

      He tried his helmet first, but the built-in headlight fizzled out as quickly as it did when they first tried it several minutes ago. He then placed it on his head, but instead of a clear audio channel, he got interrupted bursts of static.

      “Jetpacks next,” Allura said. Shiro nodded, sorting through the two sets of armor by touch.

      His pack was an obvious non-starter, judging by the huge dent in the center, and the rent on the edges of it from when they had been tossed about on the water.  He was lucky that the material hadn’t buckled or shattered altogether on impact, injuring his back beyond what a little quintessence sharing could cure in the process. It would be dangerous to even try to activate the pack now, so he set it aside.

      Next was Allura’s. As far as he could tell by touch, it was slightly beat up but the form was still mostly intact. He reached inside the lip of the device, and ran his hands around the interior locus, where the lift-generating energy was emitted. The surface felt uneven, but he couldn’t tell if that was due to hairline fractures, or dirt, or if it always felt that way. There was not a lot more he could divine from the pack just by feel, so he shook his head and held his arm out, pushing Allura gently backwards just in case something happened on activation of the device.

      “I’m turning it on,” He said. He heard Allura take another step back.

      He wrapped his arms around it, making sure the angle of thrust wouldn’t send the pack straight into his chest, and activated the jetpack on its lowest setting.

      At first, it merely glowed softly, then with a sputtering noise it  _thunked_ weakly in his arms. It was generating lift, but it would be barely enough to lift a cat. The lowest setting should have had enough power to make him hover slightly in place. He tried the next setting, with no change. He sighed and turned to tell Allura ‘no dice’, but the pack suddenly surged with a arc of bright, blue light, illuminating Allura’s look of horror as it sent him careening into the cave wall. The pack shorted out altogether on impact, once again casting them in complete darkness.

      “Shiro!” Allura cried, trying to follow the after-image that had burnt into her retinas. She tripped over an unseen stalagmite, and went sprawling. Shiro coughed weakly.

      “I’m okay,” he wheezed, “just winded. Fuck. Looks like that won’t work,” He said with a laugh.

      “G...great,” Allura said shakily. Shiro used the cave wall to help him stand, and oriented his body to her voice. He toed carefully along the cave floor to where she had landed.

      “You okay?” He asked. When she did did not answer at first, he bent down and felt around him until his hand hit her knee. He ran his hand along her leg as he crawled forward, then stopped when he felt a warm wetness, too warm to be water.

      “Shit, Allura,” He began, but she interrupted him.

      “It’s fine, it’s nothing. It’s just my foot. There must be some sort of astringent in the rainwater. It stings, is all,” she said. Her foot jerked when he touched it, and he felt something poking through the skin. Not bone, he didn’t think, but…

      “Allura, this rock’s gone straight through. That’s more than nothing,” he said angrily. Her wound was on the outer side of the ball of her foot, and he didn’t think it had hit any major ligaments, but it was still bleeding freely. Maybe it was a small blessing that they were so cold, because the sluggish circulation in her extremities seemed to keep it from bleeding as much as it would usually, but maybe that was all in his head. In any case, it was an open wound and open wounds were probably his least favorite of all wound types.

      He felt around again, and was able to snag the edge of the bundle that had held their armor. He dragged it towards them, and untangled the undersuit from the hardsuit. He found a tear in the suit, and used his teeth  to rip off a long strip of fabric. He wrung the strip out as best as he could--it had begun to dry, a little, but was still fairly saturated--then clumsily folded it into a square. He pressed it into her wound. She hissed at the contact.

      “Let’s hope the water really  _is_  astringent,” Shiro said, “because this is all that we have as far as first aid goes.”

      He tore another strip, and pressed it into her hand. She wrapped the fabric around the square, holding it in place, but it slipped. She shook her head and he had to tear a third and forth strip as the first ones were quickly saturated and discarded. The next strip he tore was larger, and she wrapped it around her entire foot. They moved on to the next foot, wrapping it similarly. Then he tore two other strips and wrapped his own feet as best as he could while she worked on ensuring she was properly bandaged.

      “We really should have done this from the start,” he muttered angrily to himself.

      “‘Preventative Measures, Wound Care, and Hypothermia Treatment after Near-Drowning In A Completely Dark, Unexplored Cave With No Functional Communication Devices’ is not a standard Paladin training class,” Allura said. “We are doing well, considering.”

      Shiro nodded. He gathered up the stray pieces of armor and bundled them tighter in the remaining shreds of fabric, wrapped that around his waist, and stood. Allura stood as well, but gave a cry of pain and collapsed back down the second she tried putting weight on her foot. Shiro swore, and crouched back down beside her. He wrapped a hand around her forearm, and helped her back to her feet.

      “Put your arms around my shoulder,” he said and Allura quickly complied.

      “Bend your knees,” he said and she did. He swept his arm below them, and smoothly swept her into his arms. She buried her face in the hollow her his neck, moaning. He froze, thinking it was a moan of pain, and then relaxed as he realized it was embarrassment instead.

      “This is humiliating,” she said.

      “Happens to the best of us,” Shiro said with false cheer. He inched forward down the cavern carefully, toeing ahead before every step to make sure his feet didn’t meet the same fate as hers.

      “Hopefully we weren’t carried far, because this is going to take a while,” He said.

      “I’m so sorry, Shiro,” Allura said quietly. Her breath made his neck break out in gooseflesh and sent pleasurable jolts down his chest and spine, which he tried his best to ignore.

      “Sorry for what? I’m the one that fell through a hole, like a dumbass.”

      “I’m the one who almost drowned.”

      “I’m the one who got knocked out out and had to be stripped. I’m also the one who jetpacked himself right in the face, which made you take a stalagmite right through the foot.”

      “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “Everything  _is_  your fault.”

      “ _Thank you_ ,” he said cheerfully. “That’s what I’ve been saying this entire time!”

      Allura’s laughter puffed against his collarbone. It sent another wave of frisson down his body, but he was getting accustomed to it.  _This is not sexy,_ he reminded himself.  _This is no romantic. This is survival._ It was harder to keep that mantra going in his head, however, when she wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and molded her body closer to his.

      She was still incredibly naked. It was incredible how naked she was.

      “Shiro,” she whispered. His shivers were getting less and less to do with the cold, and more and more to do with where her body met his, and the feel of her lips when they brushed against his skin as she talked, and the sound of her breathing in the darkness.

      “Yes?” He said, mouth dry.

      “I really do have to apologize. For not being able to… I couldn’t be your light.”

      “It’s okay,” he said automatically. “I don’t know what the glowing is about, but it’s clear that it’s something you can’t force.”

      “It’s just… It has to do with my emotions.”

      “I figured.”

      “And you kissing me,” She turned her face into his throat again. He swallowed, and he knew she could feel it against her cheek.

      “It felt like…and i know you didn’t mean it that way… but it felt like I was just being used. You weren’t kissing me because you wanted to. That’s why…”  
“I understand, and it’s true. I was using you without considering your feelings. Maybe not maliciously, but...” he said.  _But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to kiss you either,_ he didn’t add.

      “It reminded me of...”

      Of the last time she had been used. The last time her talents and body had been exchanged for kisses and promises and words of praise. When she had been in a purely transactional relationship; one that she hadn’t been able to recognize for what it was until after it had ended abruptly and violently.

      “Lotor,” he finished for her. She nodded. His lips brushed against her hair as she did so, and he resisted the urge to place another small kiss into her hair. That would be the last thing she needed right now.

      “Lotor,” she whispered. She shifted in his arms, lifting her head from his shoulders. He stared ahead in the darkness, seeing nothing. He concentrated on maintaining his balance without using his arm, and on not tripping or falling into anything. The heat of his ardor had frozen almost completely.

      He hadn’t considered what Lotor had done to her. What he had taken from her, and what she had freely given. He hadn’t even thought to contextualize his own actions in the gravity of what she had lived through. But how could he? It was a shared history that he had no part in, one that he only knew about through second hand memories. He wasn’t even  _alive_ when it happened. How could he have known?

      “I guess that explains how you know how many penises he had,” he tried to joke to lighten the mood, but winced when he heard his words hang in the air. They tasted ugly, and bitter on his tongue. He sighed. He was better than that. He knew better.

      She said nothing.

      “Allura, I’m sorry--”

      “It’s okay. I did have sex with him. I thought I was in love. I thought  _he_ was in love...” she trailed off, then started again.

      “Maybe we were, and maybe we weren’t. But now I know; sex has nothing to do with love. Kisses have nothing to do with feelings. I should… I should just let you kiss me.”

      “Would you truly welcome those kisses? Would you enjoy them? Would you glow, if I kissed you now?”

      “No.”

      “Then why should I? There’s no reason to, and I don’t want to kiss you like this,” Shiro said. Her arms briefly tightened around his shoulders.

      “How…” she said, but her voice cracked. She wet her lips, and tried again. “How would you want to kiss me?”

      “I…”

      He kicked aside a pebble, and adjusted his direction slightly when he felt his foot brush a cave wall. It took him a moment to decide what he wanted to say, and a moment longer to consider if he should even say it at all.

      “I,” he continued, “I want to kiss you when I know it will make you happy. I want you to feel good, and I want to know that I helped you feel that way. I don’t want to remind you of what happened, I want to remind you of what could happen. I want every kiss to be a promise, that things will be better, that we’ll make them better.”

      He felt her weight settle back on his chest. He tightened his grip around her thighs.

      “I want to kiss you in the sunlight. I want to kiss you in the darkness of our own room. I want to kiss you where you feel safe and warm. I also want to kiss you when you feel unsafe and cold, to remind you of that safety and warmth.”

      “Does that mean you want to kiss me now?”

      “Only if you want me to.”

      He realized he could see the pink glow of her eyes again. She was looking straight into his. He wondered what she saw, if she saw anything.

      “Kiss me,” she said softly, and he did.

       

* * *

 

 

      “What you’re trying to tell me is,” Hunk said slowly.

      “That they’re currently sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G?” Pidge concluded. “That sounds fake.”

      “I left them in a cave, not a tree. Keith’s in a tree,” Romelle said.

      “Keith’s _under_  a tree,” Keith corrected, but didn’t deny any of the other allegations.

      “But Shiro doesn’t do kisses. Shiro has never kissed a single person in his  _life,”_ Pidge said.

      “He was engaged. You know that. You probably met his fiance,” Keith said tiredly.

      “He was engaged?” Hunk asked.

      “You can get engaged without kissing!” Pidge insisted.

      “Yeah, if you’re boring,” Romelle said.

      “Not kissing isn’t boring, Romelle.”

      “Yeah, listen to Keith!”

      A burst of static made all four participants wince as a new connection was established through the helmets.

      “So, uh, bad news, guys, but--” Lance began.  
“First of all, I want to start by stating that I respect and admire Romelle in many ways, but she’s trying to tell Keith that not kissing isn’t boring,” Hunk said immediately. It took Lance a minute to puzzle out his meaning and respond.

      “Kissing rules, but Keith’s not into that.”

      “Thank you!”

      “Any time, babe, but as I was saying bad ne--”

      “Also Shiro and Allura are making out in a cave somewhere and we don’t know where,” Hunk continued.

      “Okay then. I suppose you already heard half of the bad news. The other half of it, is Coran knows and he’s now bartering for a knife that is specially used to castrate livestock.”

      “Shit,” Keith hissed.

      “Who told him?” Romelle demanded, “We had a plan! That plan hinges on Shiro not dying of blood loss before we can throw Allura’s mate finding party!”

      “Is that a thing?” Hunk asked.

      “As far as you know, it is,” Romelle said.

      “I do like parties…” he said slowly.

      “I don’t. Why the hell did you tell Coran about something that would very obviously make him go crazy?” Pidge asked.

      “Who said I told him? Pidge, that accusation hurts. Let’s not waste any more time arguing about who set whom on a homicidal quest for revenge,” Lance said diplomatically, “and let’s focus on what’s really important.”

      “What’s important is nobody knows where they actually are because Romelle has Allura’s helmet, and Shiro’s seems to be broken,” Hunk said.

      “Shit. I thought they were with you, Romelle!”

      “Why would they be with me? That was part of the plan! Me and Keith get them in the same chamber, then we vanish mysteriously, then they fall in love and then both of them stop moping so much!”

      “ _That_ was the plan? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Pidge exclaimed.

      “It’s… maybe not the dumbest, but just because two people meet in a cave…” Hunk started.  
“Doesn’t mean they’re gonna fall in love and get married!” Pidge finished.

      “You just don’t understand a maiden’s heart!” Romelle said, aggravated.   
“I  _am_ a maiden. Sort of!”

      “Yeah, but you don’t have a heart!”

      “Stop!” Keith shouted, loud enough to make everyone’s ears ring.

      “Dude, we’re wearing helmets. We can hear you,” Pidge said.

      “Listen, this bickering is pointless. It doesn’t matter what Lance and Romelle--”

      “And you,” Lance added quickly.

      “--what  _Lance and Romelle_ were planning. What matters is something obviously went wrong, and now we’ve lost two of our members,” Keith said.

      “And Shiro is in danger of losing  _his_ member.”

      “Lance,” Keith said in warning.

      “Keith,” said Lance right back, unintimidated. “Can Kosmo find them?”

      Keith looked to where his wolf lay, hunkered under a tree. He whined miserably as Keith ran a hand through his fur, and felt his abnormally warm nose.

      “How are you doing, boy?” Keith asked softly. Kosmo whined again in response, as his tail thumped the ground once. “Can you teleport?”

      Kosmo simply stared back. Keith looked out where the rain still was pouring down the landscape. As he watched, lightning struck a tree on the hillside they had taken refuge by, cutting it neatly into two. Both halves of the tree toppled over, dragging its roots up through the loosened soil. Without the roots to retain the soil, the entire tree was carried down the hill in a mudslide that spread more and more as he watched.  
Keith jumped as he felt a tug at his shoulder. His head whipped around and he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw it was just his mother.

      “We need to get out of here,” she said. She pointed a finger up to the dense canopy of the tree they had taken shelter under, which Keith belatedly realized made a fine target for any additional lightning. Krolia wrapped another arm around the wolf.

      “Take us to the lion,” she commanded, and Kosmo obeyed.

 

* * *

       

      As soon as they flashed inside the cockpit, Keith violently pulled away from her. He checked on his wolf. Kosmo panted heavily as he laid helplessly on his side. Keith ran his hands through his fur, whispering soothing sounds to his friend as he felt the wolf’s heart rate start to return to normal.

      “I’ll get something to dry him off, and some fortified water--” Krolia began, but was quickly cut off by Keith.

      “You shouldn’t have made him do that! He’s sick! We could have carried him to the lion!”

      “That mudslide was seconds away from taking us with it. He wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think its necessary,” Krolia said and scooped up the wolf in question, carrying him to their makeshift medbay and effectively cutting off all conversation.

      “But Shiro!” he called after her.

      “You’re compelled to protect your friends,”  she said in parting, “I understand. Just know that I’m just as compelled to protect you. Believe me, we wouldn’t have made it on foot, Keith.”

      Keith swore, then realized he was still connected with his friends.

      “Keith?”

      “I’m sorry,” he said,  “He won’t be able--”  
“We heard. It’s okay, buddy,” Lance said softly.

      “I’m not going to lose Shiro again!”

      “We won’t,” Romelle said. “I’m still in the cave system, and i still have these fluffy guys. I can send them to scout them out.”

      “That’s right! They should be able to flag them on the auto-map software!” Pidge cried.

      “It’ll be fine, Keith. All I have to do is let them loose and wait for this sucker,” She waved the mapper in the air, to the benefit of absolutely no one, “to light up!”

 

* * *

       

      Light filled the cavern. He could feel it through his closed eyelids, but he kept them shut a while longer. He kept them shut even when their lips parted, breath intermingling. He had come to a complete standstill, with her in his arms and her forehead on his forehead, and her heart thumping against his.

      He slowly opened his eyes. He could see her perfectly. Her eyes were so large, he thought he could see his own expression of longing reflected in them.

      “Hi,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

      “Hello,” she said shyly. “You’re good at that thing when you tell me what you want to do.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Please put me down.”

      He let her down slowly, relishing the slide of her body against his. Maybe it was a little beyond the line of conduct they were slowly sketching, but he thought she enjoyed it too so he gave himself permission to savor the contact.

      She touched down lightly. She took a few exploratory steps. She kept her weight off the outside of her foot, carrying the majority of it on her uninjured foot. Her limping still carried her faster and further than the painstaking, sightless shuffle he had adopted while holding her.

      “You could have done that from the start,” Shiro accused, trying to force a playfulness into his tone that he didn’t quite feel. “You just wanted to be carried.”

      “Shiro, please,” she said with an offended toss of her head that wasn’t entirely feigned. “I was feeling discouraged.”

      “Next time I’m feeling lazy, I’ll just say the same. ‘Allura, my _Li_ _ebeskind_ , carry me. I’m in emotional turmoil and it makes my royal knees weak.’”

      “When are you  _not_ in emotional turmoil?”

      “Ouch. Good point.”

      “Speaking of, Shiro, my… “leafskin’? What does that mean?"

      " _Liebeskind;_ it's a term of endearment _._ One of my foster families was... well, forget about it. It's not important."

      "Very well, my lipskin. My feelings hurt. Come over here and carry me.”

      He wrapped his arm around her. She leaned her weight into him, swooning dramatically.

      “A delicate creature has been overcome!” He exclaimed.

      “Oh, Shiro, I might never walk again,” She moaned. He dipped his head down and swallowed that moan, turning the sound into one of pleasure. When he tried to pull away seconds later, she followed his lips, deepening the kiss.

      The kiss was the most complete one they had shared yet, for all its silliness. When they finally came up for air, Allura was no longer leaning on him as part of a game. She pressed herself against him with a real sense of urgency. He wasted no time in kissing her again, as soundly as before.

      More kisses followed as he backed her into the cave wall. He forced one eye open just to ensure no more accidents would occur like the one earlier, but as soon as her back hit the wall he closed both eyes again, focusing completely on the sensation of their lips and the heat of their bodies as they pressed together. He untied the pack of equipment around his waist and tossed it carelessly aside.

      He felt her wince in pain as part of her foot came in contact with a stray rock. Before he could reconsider it, he gripped her thigh and hoisted her leg up over his hip. She drew away from him, only far enough to look in his eyes as their breathing synchronized. She tensed, then tightened her leg around him, forcing him closer to her.

      They seemed to struck still by the realization of what they were on the brink of doing at the exact same time. Shiro searched her eyes, looking for some direction of what to do in their glow. Allura’s hands roamed around his shoulders, alternatively tightening and releasing, adjusting her grip around him.

      “Allura, would it be okay to--?”

      “Yes,” she said before he could even finish the thought. Wherever that question was going, she figured, it was bound to be somewhere she liked.

      Shiro cautiously, slowly pressed her back further into the cave wall until she was completely plastered against it. It had been smoothed by centuries of water surges to an almost machined polish. Her skin and muscles jumped at how cold it felt at first, but as her body drank in the warmth of his body, the rock beneath her warmed also. With the wall and her arms around him supporting her weight, she was free to lift her remaining leg to wrap around his hips.

      He hoisted her further up her body, so he could reach his hand beneath them to feel along the seam of her legs. Her vulva must have retracted fully while he was kissing her dutifully earlier, but it now seemed to be once more swelling with blood and heat. He ran his fingers along it to hasten her arousal. He could feel his own blood rushing to his groin as she moaned and ground against his hand.

      “So yesterday wasn’t a fluke?” He asked. She rolled her eyes in response.

      “I tell you that I want you to feel good, and that I’d do anything for you,  _I show you my vagina,_ and you just assume that I did it all on accident?”

      “I didn’t know if I was reading something into it that you didn’t actually mean.”

      “You said you wanted to fall asleep beside me and wake up beside me! I thought that maybe after you said that, some things were just  _understood!_ ”

      “I said I wanted to fuck you asleep and--” he started, then stopped, considering. “Actually, I like your recollection better.”

      “I’m not sure if I do. Remind me what you said?” she asked, breathlessly. He lowered his head, so his lips brushed her sensitive ears.

      “I want to fuck you to sleep,” he said lowly. He felt her labia part. Apparently he hadn’t turned her off as severely as he thought he had, judging from how easily his touched glided over her. The next time he rubbed his fingers over her flesh, he could feel her wetness and her warmth. It seemed to burn in contrast to how cool her skin was.

      “And I want to fuck you awake,”  he said and she moaned helplessly. He found a bit of flesh that he assumed was clit-analogous and rubbed it lightly as her legs tightened even more around him. Apparently his assumption was correct. He ran his finger along it, and found it was shaped much differently than a human clitoris. It became firmer upon stimulation, allowing him to discern its boundaries more easily.  Instead of being a single bundle of nerves right above her inner lips, it appeared to be a entire region that circled around her vaginal opening completely, ending scant millimeters away from it. He smiled as he rubbed along it. It really was an “O” spot.

      Allura mewled piteously as he circled the newly discovered flesh with his fingers. She couldn’t help from grinding against them, chasing the contact as he abandoned the ring to explore her more fully.  His finger pressed briefly against her opening, before glancing off of it. He circled her anus lightly, never quite making contact but keeping close enough that she could practically  _feel_ the electricity of his fingers. He then stroked back up along her thigh, dragging his whole palm against her flesh. Kneading the flesh of her ass and thighs had the delightful side effect of parting her outer lips, exposing the inner flesh of her pussy to the cool cave air.

      She shivered, and moaned, spreading her legs as far as she could to maintain the sensation while still maintaining their grip on his hips. She moaned again, this time in displeasure as his hand ceased contact with her altogether. She opened her eyes to watch him stick his fingers in his mouth, coating them with his salvia. He brought them back down to her lips, to swirl around her vaginal opening.

      “You didn’t have to do that,” she observed. “I’m wet enough.”

      “Maybe I just wanted to taste you,” he said, and her cheeks burned. Apparently the glow of her markings flared even brighter too, because he noticed her blush and laughed.

      “Come on!” he said through the laughter. “It's not that dirty!”

      “We're in a cave. Everything is dirty,” she said petulantly. He kissed her in reply.

      She moaned into his mouth as he once again began circling her “clit” with his saliva-slick fingers. He didn’t break the kiss as he slowly pressed his finger into opening, giving her time to acclimate to the intrusion. She wriggled against his finger tip impatiently, seeking to drive it deeper into herself. He pulled it out before he could even penetrate her beyond just the tip of his finger, swallowing her groan of frustration. He lightly tapped two of his fingers rhythmically against the opening, then against her clit, never quite entering her or strengthening the contact, enjoying how she writhed and moaned.

      “You’re evil!” she gasped.

      “Do you feel good?” He asked.

      “Not as good as i could feel!”

      “Then I’m hardly evil,” he said with a grin, before wetting his fingers again and returning them to her cunt to tap out a staccato, tortuous rhythm, “I’m just bad.”

      “Bad! Inept!”

      “So inept,” he agreed, and lightly slapped her exposed flesh.

      She gasped loudly, and pushed her back against the cave wall, arching her hips away from the contact. She knocked him over with the strength of her reaction, sending them both sprawling.

      “Okay, that  _was_ a little bad,” he said, laughing. His back was flat on the ground, his lower legs trapped underneath him. If he hadn’t been so used to sitting seiza from years of martial arts classes, his legs would be absolutely killing him right now. As it was, they were only partially killing him because his body was almost totally out of practice. He kicked his feet out so he could lie a little more comfortably.

      “Warn me before you do something like that!” She said, but she was laughing also. She had  managed to untangle her legs from him before he completely fell so she was saved the indignity of having them trapped under his body, but she still managed to land astride him.

      “I think I fell on a rock. I think I fell on several rocks,” He said with a groan. She dragged his upper body off the ground and briskly brushed her arms across it, loosening several jagged rocks before letting him fall back to the cave floor.

      “Are you okay now?”

      “I’m great,” he said, “but maybe we should go over some ground rules.”

      “I agree. Rule one: don’t hit the ground like that.” She said firmly. Shiro could only nod in agreement.

      “Excellent ground rule. Rule two, what are your feelings on pussy slaps?”

      Allura snorted, and said, “I feel like that is a deeply ignoble phrase. I also feel like that’s a question, not a rule.”

      “Okay, but…”

      She stretched out sensuously above him, then slowly lowered her body to his chest. The deliberate, controlled pace of her action gave him time to consider each part of her as it made contact. He felt her breasts first, how soft they were, how silky the skin was, and then her ribs and stomach and their contrasting firmness. He felt her pelvis rock against his and her thighs shift. He was sure she could feel his penis brush against her cunt as the tilt of her hips changed. Her lips were no longer spread against his lower abdomen, but instead exposed to the air. Just a short thrust and he could be inside her. He bit his lip against the moan that came with that thought.

      “But?” she asked.

      “But what?”

      “Finish your thought, Shiro,” she said with a sigh. He racked his brains. Oh yeah, they’d been talking about...

      “But… The thing. Can I do it?” he pressed, articulately.

      She laid her head on his chest, tucking her head under his chin. His arm wrapped around her torso, marveling at how this incredibly powerful person could somehow fit so perfectly against him.  _She could be any size, literally_ , he thought,  _but she’s this size. She could be with any person, but she’s with me._ He placed a kiss into her hair to stop his thoughts before he could have a complete personality meltdown over the impossibility of this moment. That would hardly be attractive.

      “You may, in fact, do the thing,” she said, and raised a finger to his lips to stifle his reply, “but I reserve the right to revoke permission at any time.”

      "I promise to be on my best guard. I will cease doing the thing immediately at the slightest hint of discomfort."

      "Well, you don't have to be  _that_ guarded, but I appreciate the sentiment."

      He kissed her again, and reached down once more. He rubbed enthusiastically against her opening and along the nerves that surrounded it, until she was wreathing helplessly against his touch. He stopped touching her only as long as it took to wet his fingers in his mouth, again adding to her natural lubrication. Then, without warning, he slapped lightly against her open labia and and her entire body jolted--less violently than the first time, now that she knew it was coming. Her moan echoed loudly through the cavern.

      They lay like that for a while, him alternating continued contact along her clit with light finger taps randomly against it or against her opening, punctuating it with the occasional larger, open palmed tap. She was panting against his chest now, her juices practically pooling on him. Alteans must naturally produce a lot more wetness than humans, he mused. He withdrew his fingers from her pussy, admiring how drenched they were. And he hadn’t even put them inside her yet. He tasted his fingers once again, not tiring of the strange, almost-but-not-quite familiar flavor of her, as she wriggled her hips on top of him, smearing her moisture across both of them in her desperation to regain contact.

      He knew his own pre-cum was adding to the mess. He never knew if he should be embarrassed of it or not, because it could leave some pretty damning evidence behind when he got aroused someplace socially awkward when most guys could just tuck up or adjust their postures and not worry about anything other than the extreme personal discomfort. Then again, the extra lubrication always felt pretty damn good and he hadn’t heard complaints from his partners in the rare occasions when they’d decide to go bare.

      Which brought something a lot more uncomfortable than a trapped erection to mind.

      “Condom,” he gasped. Allura stopped her movements against him and pushed herself up enough to look him in the eyes in confusion.

      “Gundam? That was a Galra weapons program that never took off--why are… why are you talking about that now?”

      “ _Condom,”_ he repeated, desperately. His cock and balls  _ached,_ but…

      “Condom? Oh.” She let her head fall back on his chest. “Right. Condom. Obviously unavailable right now.”

      “But you have some form of--”

      “It’s taken care of,” she said quickly. “Obviously, I had to be on top of that with…”

      With Lotor. Neither one of them was willing to bring him any more into the conversation than he needed to be, so his name went unsaid.

      “There are shots, pills in the emergency kits even if I wasn’t,” she said reassuringly. Shiro wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her in for a kiss. He let it drop to the side as it became clear she needed no further encouragement to deepen the kiss, and returned his hand to her pussy. This time, he wasted no time in teasing. Just a quick swirl around her labia to pick up extra lubrication, then he was pushing his finger inside her. She moaned sharply against his lips as it easily slid inside, and he marveled at her heat, and her softness.

      He explored carefully, feeling for any special spots that seemed unique to Alteans, or any place where the pleasure seemed in danger of turning to pain. He took extra care because had no idea what her pain tolerance would be, and he didn’t want to find out by experience.  It seemed like every spot he pressed against was a good one in slightly different ways, judging from the variety of noises he was drawing from her. She finally broke contact with her lips to lay her head helplessly back on his chest. She tilted her hips further, raising her ass and opening herself up to deeper exploration.

      He reached as far as his finger could go. He then slid it out, slowly, making sure to brush against every different pleasure zone he had identified earlier. He withdrew from her altogether, letting his finger trail against her opening and down her lips as she cried in protest. He did nothing for a few moments, waiting for her to decide the next move.

      She blew a tendril of hair from her forehead in frustration, and reached down to grip his wrist, and bring him back into contact. She held it there as it slid back inside her, and thrust back against him. After a few rolls of her hips, he got the idea and started meeting her thrusts with his own movements. She let go of his wrist, gripping his shoulders instead as she tried her best to ride his hand. Like this, he could only finger fuck her shallowly, and she moaned her impatience. He added a second finger, and even that didn’t seem enough as she moved her hips frantically. Whatever she was looking for, this wasn’t it.

      He signed and withdrew his fingers. She growled in response, and he kissed her forehead. He encouraged her to turn over, to lie against his chest on her back instead of on her stomach. She obeyed hesitantly, and he showered kisses on her as a reward. She let her head hang off his shoulder, giving him access to her shoulders and her neck. If she turned her head slightly he could kiss her properly on the lips this way. He ran a hand back and forth from her neck to her stomach, not neglecting her breasts on the way down.

      He clamped down on the junction of her neck and shoulder with his lips, sucking lightly and making her gasp, as his fingers delicately spanned her throat. She moaned helplessly as he flexed his fingers, but he released his feather-light grip when he realized this was probably something he should be asking permission for, also. But… she seemed to like it.

      A dark thought crossed his mind before he could stop it; had Lotor ever choked her? Had he treated her roughly, or had he treated her gently? Did his actions show violence, or love? How deeply had he touched her, how much of his love had been real, how much of it had been another method of conquership, of domination? What parts of her would always belong to the bastard? What parts of her could he never reach?

      He shook his head. He couldn’t keep worrying what she did and did not do with a dead man. That was her own damn business. He wouldn’t let this weird, out-of-nowhere jealousy turn into some sort of post-mortem dick measuring contest with a ghost. Allura probably wasn’t comparing herself with any of his past lovers, right?

      Then again, he thought with a start, she probably had no idea who any of them were. She didn’t know about Adam, about Clark or Fatima or anyone else, because he had never let her see or know the real him. He realized then that he was so desperate to pretend the bad things in his life never happened, to never address or talk about them, that he was also suppressing the good things. What kind of hypocrite was he, asking so much of her life and giving so little in return?

      “Shiro?” She asked unsteadily. He buried his head in her neck, holding her close to him. She tentatively stroked his hair.

      “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Wherever your mind is trying to take you, it’s okay not to go there. Stay with me. Was it the Astral Plane again?”

      “No, not even close. I’m sorry,” he said.

      She lifted his chin, and kissed him. She tried to pour her emotions into the kiss, she wanted to tell him without words that she wanted him with her, him alone, and it didn’t matter where he’d been before.

      They stayed like that for a while, just kissing, trying to communicate with their lips what could not be said with their tongues. He stroked his hand up and down her ribs, occasionally wrapping it around a breast or passing a light stroke over a nipple to her small noises of approval. After a while, he moved his hand back her her pussy, finally remembering why he switched positions in the first place.

      He began stroking her, building her up back to that peak. As soon as her hips began to move with his touch he wasted no time slipping his fingers back inside her. She finally broke their kiss to let her head loll on his cheek. He was able to get more leverage in this position, to thrust in and out much quicker. Her moans became sharper, more frequent, as he touched her just the way he remembered she touched herself last night. He knew she was close when her hips left his pelvis altogether, her muscles locking her into a bridge pose as she chased his hand. Her moans increased in volume as her pleasure outweighed her natural reserve and self-consciousness.

      He slid his index and middle finger out of her, and replaced him with his middle and fourth finger. His fingers were larger than hers, so he wasn’t about to add a third one, but this way he could drag his index and fifth finger around her clit as he curled his other fingers inside her. Her hips worked in the air as he slammed into her with all the speed he could muster. His head was hooked over her shoulder, so he could look down the tense plane her body made from her shoulders to where his fingers worked inside of her. God, he wished she would cum soon because he wanted to be inside her,  _now._

      He didn’t have to wait long, because soon her legs were clamping around his hand and her body was shaking with her cries. She must have been taking great care to not pulverize his arm his her legs, but even so it felt like he was caught in some sort of gentle, soft vice. Her body writhed exquisitely as he continued to work his fingers inside her. He kept them moving even with his wrist locked in place as she came apart around him. He stilled his motions, but did not remove his fingers as felt her muscles tremble with the effort of holding back; trying hard not to thrash completely free from him. Her hips undulated against nothing, writhing in the air. Her moans were beautiful, varied, mixing short sharp ones with loud, long ones that nearly ended in sobs. She finally collapsed against him with one last drawn-out, shaking cry.

       _That_ , Shiro thought to himself, _was the most ridiculous damn orgasm i have ever seen._ And that was including those squirt videos his first boyfriend would send to him occasionally once the other teen had found out that Shiro was bi.

      And he wanted to see it again, immediately.

      “Are you okay?” he whispered into her ear. She nodded against him, beyond words, and shuddered as he finally withdrew his fingers.

      “Ready for more?” he asked. She whimpered, pressing her face his neck as if she could hide like that. After a moment, she nodded again. Shiro groaned in relief.

      Maybe he should let her catch her breath a while longer, he thought as he took his neglected penis in his hand, unable giving to resist a few cursory strokes. It was only polite.

      Maybe he should let her recover a little more, he told himself as he positioned himself by her opening.

      And maybe if he was a stronger man, he might have even followed through with those thoughts.

       _Fuck_   _it,_  he thought as he thrust inside.

       

* * *

 

 

      “We have a hit!” Romelle squealed excitedly.

      “No, it’s not. That’s the same cache as before,” Pidge said, eyes glued to her uplink to the auto-map system. “They’re not in the caves.”

      “They have to be! There’s no evidence that they ever left!”

      “There’s no evidence that they left,” Hunk reasoned, “but not finding a single sign of them in the cave is pretty strong evidence that they didn’t stay.”

      “It sounds like a riddle,” Lance observed. “What doesn’t stay, but never leaves?”

      “Uh, winter? Because the leaves have all fallen from the trees!” Romelle said.

      “Yeah, Romelle. Shiro and Allura are currently stuck in  _winter,_ which is an arbitrary division of time, which one cannot be stuck in at the moment without a  _time machine_ because it’s spring on this planet _,”_ Pidge grumbled.

      “So, uh, alternatively,” Hunk said, “If they never left, but still aren’t there, maybe it’s because they’re on, uh, a different plane?”

      “Of existence?” Keith asked, tensely.

      “Once again, one cannot become stuck a concept, or in any time but the present. Technically, we’re always stuck in the present,” Pidge insisted.

      “Shiro was stuck in the Astral Plane, which is as conceptual a concept as I’ve ever heard, Pidge,” Keith said with mounting irritation.

      “And we just got him de-planed!” Lance moaned. “Allura can’t do it again if she’s stuck, too!”

      “I was thinking more like a geometric plane, you guys,” Hunk said sheepishly.

      “You mean, like,” Romelle said her mind worked through the problem, “these floaty fuzzies only move on one plane, in two dimensions. They only move forward/back and left/right, because they’re always floating at the same height from the ground. But maybe if they were to float up and down they might find …”

      “You think Shiro fell through a hole,” Pidge said flatly.

      “And Allura fell in after him,”  Lance continued.

      “And because those cute little buggers don’t walk, they would have floated right over said hole without ever noticing them,” Hunk finished.

      The paladins and Romelle sat in silence, considering. Lance interrupted their contemplation with a bark of laughter.

      “Oh man! That’s got to be the most embarrassing thing I ever heard! And I heard them having phone sex!”

      “He heard  _what?”_

      “Shut up, Lance! He could still be in danger!” Keith growled.

      “I’m sorry, my man, but just think of the most dangerous badasses in the galaxy, defeated by gravity.”

      “Not funny, Lance.”

      “I wouldn’t be laughing if I thought they were in real danger, Keith. A fall’s nothing to those two. They’re probably just stuck in the bottom of another level of the cavern. We find them, pull them out--”

      “--I make fun of them--”

      “--Pidge makes fun of them, and bam! Crisis solved. I’ll tell Coran the good news.” He paused for consideration. “But only after we find Shiro some very strong crotch armor.”

      Keith shuddered.

      “All we have to do is just make sure my little friends fly closer to the ground and adjust the mapping modules they actually scan in three dimensions instead of two, and we’ll be sure to find them. You can relax, Keith.”

      “I honestly doubt I can, but okay. Find that hole!”

 

* * *

       

      Allura cried and arched her back helplessly as his cockhead penetrated her. She was still so sensitive from her orgasm that she was almost crawling out of her skin with the additional sensation. Shiro stopped his thrust almost immediately, regret retching his gut. Hell, he should have waited after all, she was way too sensitive and raw and--

      --and he moaned as she thrust back against him, completing the motion he started and sealing their bodies together. He held his breath and his body still as she set the pace, then relaxed as it became clear that she  _definitely_ was not being hurt. It only took a few seconds for him start moving again, pressing his hand against her pelvis. He might not be able to grip her hips with both of his hand for levage like he wanted to, but holding her down like this worked almost as well.

      He could almost feel the impact of his thrusts through her body like this, which was wildly sexy to him in a way he really didn’t understand. She had started moaning loudly from the first few thrusts, already as worked up as if they’d been fucking for hours instead of seconds, which was sexy in a way he  _did_  understand. He needed to distract himself  _now_ or this would be a very short encounter indeed.  He tried thinking of where they had been before, and where they were now.

      Had they been feeling cold earlier? It seemed impossible now. Her core seemed to surround his cock like liquid warmth. Had they really been so concerned about being wet before? Right now her wetness seemed like the most heavenly fucking thing in the world. He slid in and out so easy, even though she was so tight around him. Had it ever been dark? Right now the light that shone off her was almost blinding, and he could see everything around him in stark relief. Even when he closed his eyes, starlight bled through his eyelids. He was almost in sensory overload, but somehow almost didn’t seem nearly enough.

      He eased some of pressure off her lower abdomen where he held her, and she took the additional freedom to thrust herself harder against him. He slid his hand back up her body to clutch a breast, pinching and kneading the flesh as she cried against him.

      It felt good. It felt very good.

      He almost forgot that he was trying to distract himself. He was so damn close to cumming already, that his usual distraction techniques were falling pitifully short. He couldn’t even think of any damn Shakespeare to recite.

      Allura’s legs scrambled along the cave floor, seeking better purchase to thrust back on him. She yelped in pain as her injured foot caught on another rock and instinctively drew her leg back up towards her body. Shiro stopped thrusting, alarmed.

      “Allura!”

      “I’m fine, don’t move! It’s just my stupid foot!”

      But he was already moving. He wrapped an arm around her and turned her so that they were once again front-to-front. She moaned as his cock slid out of her, but docilely allowed him to hold her to his body as he sat up. She wrapped her legs legs around him automatically, taking care that only her heels met the floor beneath them.  He let his arm fall, supporting his weight on it as he leaned back to search her eyes for any lingering hint of pain.

      “I’m  _fine,_ ” she insisted again. But this position held its own promise. He bent his knees so his legs were no longer straight out before him, giving her two nice, thick thighs to lean back on.   She used her heels to rock herself back on his cock, bouncing on his lap experimentally. Shiro groaned.

      Oh yes. They could definitely make this work.

      She reached back and quickly slid his penis back inside her, biting her lip his cockhead met a token resistance before she let herself sink down on it. This new position wasn’t as open as the last, but she felt extremely fortunate that she hadn’t felt any of the pain she had felt with previous partners.

      Maybe it’s because of how his anatomy worked; the fact that his cock was so… so  _steady._  It didn’t thrash around inside her of its own accord, it didn’t pulsate in odd ways or deform as she rode it. It was hard, and thick, even if it was shorter than what she had become accustomed to, but not too hard or too thick. Maybe it was the fact he only had one, but he seemed to just  _fit._ And maybe shortness wasn’t a terrible thing. He seemed to make up for his lack of length with the strength and enthusiasm with which he thrust into her. He could reach what he needed to reach, but he also had enough girth to brush all the areas that she craved him to touch on the way down.

      Or maybe it wasn’t any of those things. Maybe it wasn’t his body, or the way he moved it. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was how carefully he treated her, how he let her explore how he fit inside her before taking his own initiative, and how painstakingly aware he was that their bodies were never built for each other. It’s not like he never made mistakes, or treated her like she was made of glass, but his hyper-vigilance for signs of discomfort made her bolder than she might have been otherwise.

      She sighed as he began to move in her again. His head fell against her breast and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, burying her fingers in his short, soft hair. The glow from her markings bathed bathed it in a pinkish light, but it almost seemed to shine a brilliant white on its own.

      Their movements were limited like this. He couldn’t pound into her like before, and although she could thrust down with some force, she didn’t want to. She enjoyed the way they rocked together, how she could feel his lips form words that he could no give voice to against her breast. She liked how she could notice things she couldn’t before, how she could isolate every last sensation as he slowly filled her and withdrew.

      He peppered kisses along her sternum and breasts as she continued stroking his hair. She only moaned occasionally now, in contentment rather than ecstasy. Occasionally he would hit something that sent starts across her vision. It instinctively made her want to grind down and slam her hips back into his. Her body wanted to chase that feeling to replicate it, to expand on it, but she forced herself into stillness, holding her breath.

      The third time that happened, Shiro stopped moving. He gently pushed out of her embrace and cupped her face in his hand. She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes.

      “I’m hurting you,” he said softly. She shook her head, still maintaining contact with his hand.

      “No, it feels good,” she said, trying to rock back into him but he his hand left her face to grip her hips, stilling her movements.

      “You keep on--”

      “Because it feels so good. I’m trying to hold back,” she interrupted. He searched her face, looking for any buried signs of pain. She merely smiled back at him, blissfully, and leaned in to kiss him softly.

      “Don’t believe me?”

      “I do,” he said, then licked his lips and asked, “You’d tell me if I was doing something you didn’t like, right?”

      “I would. I can’t promise if I’d tell you before or after I punch you, though.”

      He laughed, and she sighed in delight as he began to move in her again. Her head dropped to rest on shoulders. She ghosted her fingertips across back, enjoying how the skin and muscles jumped and tensed at the feather-light sensation. She followed the light touch with a stronger one, applying enough pressure to leave a pale track in her wake, which almost instantly filled back in with color. If he was a sacred Altean, her touch would have brought light to his skin,  but she found the changes in coloration just as beautiful. She drew patterns on his back as he moved inside her, sometimes following the path of his scars, sometimes ignoring them altogether to draw her own patterns. Soon she was dragging her entire hand across his back, mapping out the muscle groups, pressing deeply on the places that felt the most tense.

      “That feels amazing,” he said breathlessly.

      “Which part?”

      “All of it. Your hands. Your skin. Your pus--” she interrupted him with a kiss, but continued working her hands into his shoulder muscles.

      “Don’t be vulgar,” she said when they parted, and he laughed.

      “I’ve said worse! Very recently!”

      “Then say better,” she said before capturing him in another kiss.

      “Your lips, then.” he amended when he regained his breath. She snorted, then hummed in contentment. She didn’t rest her head on his shoulders this time, but instead stayed with her cheek pressed to his. She liked that she could feel his breath on the shell of her ear this way. She liked the contrast between the cold air when he inhaled, and the warmth of his breath when he exhaled. She liked that she could hear his breath hitch when she rolled her hips just so, and she liked that she could feel it when he bit his lips, or when he worked his jaw just as she found another spot of tension to knead away.

      “You could hurt me so easily,” he said. Even with her hearing, his words might have been lost if they hadn’t been spoken right against her cheek. “But you treat me so gently. You make me feel...”

      He shook his head. He wasn’t ready to say the words that balanced on the tip of his tongue. He didn’t think she was ready to hear them, either.

      His movements had almost come to a standstill. Allura shifted in his lap, moving her legs from where they were folded behind him. She brought them to either side of his hips, folding them into a kneeling position. She found she had greater control over the roll of her hips and the depth of cock this way. He moaned as she took full advantage of it.

      His hand went to her asscheek, kneading and spreading it as she steadily rode him. He ran his fingers along where they were jointed, collecting her moisture, before using to press a finger lightly against her other hole. He didn’t push his finger in, not knowing how she’d react to the intrusion, but she seemed to like it just fine when he just played with it with light, teasing pressure. She wiggled her hips against his touch, canting them from side-to-side the next time she was seated on him. He had to admit, that was doing some pretty phenomenal things to his cock. On the flip side, it was also making harder to remain satisfied at their slow pace.

      Allura seemed to think so too, as she picked up speed on her own. He let his torso fall back, swearing softy as his head hit the ground with slightly more force than necessary. He left his legs as they were, to allow him the leverage to meet her thrust-for-thrust. She placed her hands on his chest, leaning on him as her pace quickened and the force behind her hips increased to match it.

      Soon the sound of flesh slapping against flesh was echoing in the cave. Her moans were gaining in volume as their coupling regained its prior intensity, and he couldn’t help but join his voice to hers. They weren’t moving frantically, not yet, but he could feel the fire starting to burn in his stomach. It wasn’t the pressure of impending orgasm;, it was a combustive desire. It was the impulse to let his urges consume him, to flip her onto her back and pound away, ruthlessly. Here was the desire to take with no regard to what he could give back. Here was the urge that told him to ignore the pace she set, and just to  _fuck._

      Apparently his success in suppressing that desire was mixed.

      He was pounding into her again, arm wrapped around her waist to keep her in place as her own movements stilled. Her nails raked down his chest as her hands clenched into fists, and her mouth hung open as she let him crash into her. Each thrust seemed to ripple through her entire body. Every time he bottomed out inside her, he drug a new sound from her lips. That gave him new impetus to find out just exactly how many sounds she could make, and how loud she could make them. Her head dropped to his chest as her cries bled into one long wail, and suddenly she was cumming around him.

      He forced himself to slow down, but didn’t bother restraining the strength of his thrusts as her legs shook and her hips worked helplessly. He stopped altogether when she reached a hand down between and pinned his hips to the floor, as effortlessly as she might hold down a piece of paper against the wind. She keened against him as he felt her inner muscles flutter and contract. Her orgasm didn’t have the athleticism and spectacle of her previous one, but she made up for it with the strength of her contractions. He doubted he could cum now even if he wanted to, with how tightly they were sealed together, with how her walls gripped the base of his cock.

      It took a few moments for her muscles to relax, moments that Shiro took to try and remember a single thing about the universe. He found that even remembering his own name seemed an insurmountable task with her wrapped around him like that. Maybe he just needed a reminder.

      He thrust up into her once, sparking a new wave of pleasure to course through her body as her orgasm hadn’t fully subsided, and dragging another sharp moan from her.

      “Say my name,” he whispered, and thrust again.

      “Shiro,” she moaned into his chest.

      He shook his head.

      “Wouldn’t you know it, but that’s not my name.”

      Allura raised her head. Her eyes sought his own as she tilted her head in confusion.

      “It’s not?”

      “Nickname,” he said with another thrust that shook her entire body.

      “Nickname?” she repeated.

      He hummed in confirmation. The inanity of the conversation was enough to blanket some of the fire that coursed through his veins. Well, that and feeling her cum around him. That was enough to satisfy any urgent need, though he still was finding it difficult to keep from pounding wantonly into her core.

      “Shiro’s a nickname. Could you guess what my real name is?” She braced herself for another hard thrust to punctuate his sentence, and whined when it didn’t come. Instead, Shiro ran his hand along her lower back, easing away some of the tension that hadn’t been bled from her during orgasm. She sighed and seemed to melt under his touch.

      “Hmm,” she said as he slid leisurely in and out of her. “Your name… Is it one I’ve heard before?”

      He kissed her temple.

      “Yes,” he said softly, stirring the baby hairs that framed her forehead with his breath. She rolled off him, and he thought he had somehow offended her, until he saw her clearing another part of the cave floor to lie down on it. She spread her legs, beckoning him into her. He followed her gladly.

      “I was getting tired of being on top,” she said in explanation. “I want to be lazy right now. Continue as you were,” she waved her hand in a vague command.

      “If only I had some pillows, you pillow princess,” he said fondly as she wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him closer to her. It only took him a second to position himself, and then he was inside her again. She sighed as he sank into her.

      Shiro thrust lazily as he laid down on top of her. He didn’t really have to worry about crushing her, with her type of strength, but he still made sure to not rest his weight wholy on her. He leaned some of his weight on his elbow, and slid his hand under her head to support it. He knew from incredibly recent experience that the cave floor was not the most comfortable headrest in the world. She mewled, and undulated her body beneath him. He kissed whatever skin he could reach, before she finally met his lips with her own. He held her like that--his lips on hers, his chest against her chest, his stomach brushing against hers as she shifted--as he began a new rhythm.

      “My name, Princess.”

      “Try using my name first.”

      He rewarded that statement with a harder thrust. Her breath hissed as she sharply inhaled, and he froze.

      “Hurts?”

      “Sensitive. Not hurt. Please continue, if you’d be so kind,” she said with a few pats of encouragement on his back. He complied, making sure to avoid the angle and strength he used before.

      “A name that I’ve heard before…” She said slowly, deliciously. She kissed up his neck, to his ear. She softly bit his earlobe and let it slide through her teeth. “I know,” she rasped huskily. A shiver ran through Shiro’s body at the sound.

      “What is it?” he whispered, completely under her spell. He could hear her lick her lips.

      She paused for a moment to build the suspense, and then whispered, “Yorak.”

      He thrust hard into her again, making Allura squeak and writhe. She laughed breathlessly as he pumped a few more times with the same strength in retaliation.

      “I yield! I yield!” She moaned. His movements became gentle again, and Allura sighed in disappointment

      “Hey, who told you to stop?” She said with an exaggerated pout.

      “You did. You said ‘I yield’,” He said with a shake of his head.

      “Did I? Remind me what happened. Reconstruct the moment.”

      He laughed, and he worked himself back up to that rough pace. She moaned happily underneath him, almost wriggling completely free every time his hips drew back. He had to pin her down with the weight of his hips to keep her still enough to actually penetrate.

      “You’re way too sensitive right now, Princess,” he said with a grunt. “You can barely keep still.”

      “It feels good!”

      “It probably won’t in the morning if we keep going this way. I have to consider your delicate alien physiology,” he said, before withdrawing completely.

      “You’re the delicate alien, you alien. Get back in there!” she whined in protest, and pouted when somehow that persuasive argument failed to get him back inside her.

      “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you like this,” He said, before hooking one of her legs behind his shoulder. She giggled in understanding, and kicked her other leg up on his opposite shoulder.

      “After all, you haven’t said my name yet,” He said, before lowering his mouth to her pussy.

      She moaned in delight as he spread her lips with his hand, and licked around the mouth of her cunt. He followed the shape of her clit with his tongue, letting her have a break from penetration, rough or otherwise. She ran her hands through his hair as he licked her leisurely. It took her a minute to find her voice, and when she did, it was high, cracking.

      “Do I get another hint?”

      He shook his head ‘yes’, not bothering to lift his mouth from her clit. She wriggled, half in pleasure, half in impatience.

      “And that hint is?” She prompted. He looked up from his task. She tilted her head as she stared back at him. Her marks glowed, forge-bright. Her eyes shone with that strange, inner light. Her hair had started to come loose from its bun, and tendrils of it framed her face.

      “You’re so beautiful,” he said almost without realizing he was putting voice to thought.

      “That’s not a hint, handsome,” she said, hand leaving his hair just long enough to trace along his brow. He smiled bashfully, which was so incongruous with his position between her legs that she had to laugh.

      “Could you let down your hair? I like your hair,” He asked, largely ignoring her words. She signed, and lifted her body high enough to loosen her hair from its customary bun. It cascaded down her shoulders, pooling on the cave floor. He reached up to rub a tendril of it between his fingers.

      “Hint,” she prompted.

      “My nickname is part of my full name,” he said, and put his mouth back on task.

      She resisted rubbing her legs together as she thought. He really was doing some lovely things down there, but this was now a challenge and she did not back down from challenges. A name she heard before, that contains his nickname…

      “Shirothehero.”

      He lifted his head back up with a confused look.

      “All one word: ‘Shirothehero’,” Allura explained. Shiro shook his head and lowered it once more. She moaned as he sealed his mouth to her clit and pressed his tongue gently into her opening. She slapped a hand to her mouth to prevent any additional sounds.  She couldn’t let herself get distracted!

      “Hint?”

      He didn’t even bother lifting his head all the way up this time. He addressed her vagina as he said, “Can’t think of another hint that won’t be a dead give-away.”

      “Hinnnt?”

      “Fine. Think ‘Monsters and Mana’,” he said with a sigh that made her muscles jump slightly as air hit her sensitive flesh.

       _Monsters and Mana, Monsters and Mana,_ she thought. Then she was struck by a flash of brilliance! Or it could have been his tongue again.

      “Oh! Pike… Piiike… Pikeshiro!”

      His head met her abdomen and he snorted.

      “That far off?”

      “That far off,” he confirmed.

      “It can’t be…” She started, horrified. “It couldn’t be Jiro Shirogane? You named your character after yourself?”

      “Uh, no. It isn’t Jiro. And technically, it wasn’t me who named that character, so...”

      “Shiro,” she said seriously, letting her legs slide from is shoulders. He pushed himself to his knees and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

      “Shiro, you mean to tell me with all those brains in your head, the only thing you could think to name your character was ‘Takashi Shirogane’. Which is your real, actual name.”

      “Well… You said it. It was a lot less sexy than I thought it would sound, but you said it.” He crawled back up her body to kiss her, but she turned her face away.

      “Allura, come on.”

      “No. I am ashamed of you. ‘The head of Voltron’. Ridiculous.”

      “I told you, it wasn’t me!”

      “Oh, a likely story! So convenient that when someone reminds you of something embarrassing in your past you can just claim, ‘It wasn’t me! My evil clone did it’!”

      “But it was my clone!” Shiro was laughing now, and she couldn’t help but join him. He kissed her hair, her forehead, and finally her lips as she tossed her head to-and-fro in denial.

      “That isn’t even funny,” he protested through more laughter. “It’s a serious and messed up thing that happened to me!”

      “Oh, Takashi,” she said fondly, and he froze. He couldn’t help staring at her, at the smile on her lips. At how gorgeous she looked, and how sweet she sounded. At how beautifully her tongue shaped his name. He kissed her again, soundly. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close to her as they kissed.  He only paused for air briefly before he was on her again.

      Without breaking the kiss, she wrapped her legs around his hips once again. She rubbed herself against his cock, seeking to bring her inside of him without having to take her hands from his face. She didn’t succeed, but it felt nice to try. Finally, Shiro broke off the kiss so he could properly guide himself into her. He slid inside her so easily that it felt like coming home.

      She exhaled, shakily, and wrapped her arms around him as he started moving in her again. Each stroke felt so raw, so perfect, that it forced all thoughts of conversation from her head. She could barely think of anything besides him, besides how he felt and how he made her feel. Her mind was filled with nothing but the haze of this connection, and from his rapt expression she could tell he was as absorbed in her as she was in him.

      She tilted her hips up, opening herself even more to him, and she gasped as he brushed that place inside of her that was still so sensitive from the way he had been her fucking before. It would take so very little to tip her over the edge again.

      He grunted against her skin, but she was so far into the intimacy and pleasure of their joining that she could barely even moan anymore. Her throat was choked with some emotion she couldn’t define. Nothing came from her mouth but soft gasps and sharp intakes of breath.

      “Allura. Oh, Allura,” He whispered into her hair. He said her name like a spell, as if he believed it was magic.

      “Takashi,” she whispered around the knot in her throat.

      “Takashi,” she repeated as he shuddered against her.

      “Takashi!” she cried as his hips began to crash more desperately against hers. It was like a dam had broken in each of them, spilling the noises from her lips and spurring him into deeper, faster strokes. She could do nothing but wrap her arms around him and hold on, sobbing his name.

      “Allura!” he said, nearly choking on her name, then, “Princess!”

      It didn’t feel like a title when he said it that way. It felt like a vow, like he had poured all of what he felt into that word. She heard the sense of duty he felt towards her, the obligation, the guilt, but also the affection, the respect, the undying devotion. She was his Princess. All of that, he conveyed in one word.

      She didn’t know any words that could encapsulate what she felt towards him. Not the name she knew him by, not the title of Black Paladin and all the gravity it carried, not even his true name, the one she so very recently learned and said for the first time in the midst of passion. Instead she poured her soul into her kiss, as she captured his lips once more in her own.

      She offered herself, or what parts of her she could offer. She offered her best parts, not the bruised or empty parts, or the parts of her that raged inside her chest and beat against her ribs. He kissed her back, and she felt that maybe he didn’t care for what she thought was best and not. He took what she offered, and more. He took her as she was, everything beautiful that she gave to him and everything ugly that she tried to hold back. He accepted them all and gave of himself in return as he tried to fuck his way into her body.

       _Yours. Whatever I am, whatever I have. I’m yours._

      She had no idea if those thoughts belonged to him, or her. Perhaps it didn’t matter.  They were close enough now that the boundaries of Shiro and Allura seemed to dissolve. “Me” and “mine”  were replaced by “we” and “ours”.

      She broke the kiss with a gasp, severing the exchange. She had no clue what kind of spiritual connection they had just forged, but it felt much more than one of sex and desire. It almost felt they had briefly fallen into the trance that occured when a paladin truly bonded with their lion. She wasn’t able to dwell on it for long, however. All thoughts of what just transpired were driven from her mind as Shiro pounded relentlessly against her. Her cries reached a fever pitch, and then his hips were shuddering against hers as his body stilled.

      He emptied into her as she clenched around him. He moaned incoherently as he came, and she stroked his hair, murmuring her own nonsense words of pleasure.

      He didn’t collapse on her, not exactly, but his dismount could never be described as graceful as his arm slid out from underneath them, laying him flat against her body. He nestled into her as his heart rate returned to normal. She continued carding her fingers through his hair, as he brought his own hand stroke hers in return. Finally, he slipped out of her with a sigh.

      Her muscles felt like jelly, but somehow she also felt stronger than she had been when she woke up beside him, shivering in the dark. The quintessence she spent keeping them warm and the exhaustion she felt from almost drowning was replaced by pleasant somnolence and hazy warmth. She felt like she had regained what she lost, and then some.

      Speaking of warmth...

      She brought her hands down to feel his release. Some of his semen had escaped her as he pulled out, she found as she felt a string of it drip down her pussy. She gathered it with a finger, and rubbed it between her forefinger and thumb. It had seemed thin and milky when she watched him cum last night, but up close It was a little thicker than she thought. It was not as thick and tenaciously sticky as the sperm packets that Galra deposited, but she supposed that was because coverage and flow was more important than accuracy and viscosity in human reproduction.

      She brought her fingers to the level of her eyes to inspect it closer, but then stopped as she realized Shiro was watching her. She averted her eyes as she wiped it on his arm in embarrassment, earning herself a tired but indignant, “Hey!”

      “If you really want to know how it tastes, then...” he said with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows, but she pushed him off her before he could finish the thought.

      “I wasn’t going to  _taste_ it,” she said haughtily, before the absurdity of their conversation, their location, and their entire situation  made her dissolve into giggles. He laughed tiredly along with her.

      She let them lay there a few moments longer, before slapping his chest lightly and staggering to her feet. She tried placing her weight on her injured foot without thinking and wobbled when the pain suddenly reasserted itself. Despite his physical exhaustion, Shiro shot up almost instantly to steady her.

      “Easy, now,” he said. “You might not have noticed, but I think you might have stepped on something back there.”

      She fixed him with a glare. He smiled back, charmingly. Him and his stupid face and his pretty eyes and his stupid, radiant cheek marks…

      Wait.  

      She clapped her hands to his cheeks and almost unbalanced him as she dragged his face closer to her. She wasn’t imagining anything. Two white crescents now adorned his cheekbones, right under his eyes. When her thumbs brushed over them, she felt the familiar buzz of quintessence that one would feel when touching any Alteans’ markings.

      Shit, was  _that_ what was happening when she kissed him just before he came? Did she  _literally_ share part of her soul instead of figuratively? She groaned and the glow from her body flickered alarmingly. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. She had already held and manipulated his soul when she transferred him back into his body, but she had managed to her her own soul separate. There was no essential bleed then like what just must have happened now. The difference here might have been the strength of their connection, or their intimacy, or maybe i was just the fact that he had willfully accepted her in a way he wasn’t able to before.

      In any case, she might have just done something incredibly stupid.

      But then he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. His marks glowed brighter, flooding the cavern with a soft brilliance. He was exquisite.

      She might have just done something incredibly stupid, and incredibly beautiful.

      His eyes opened slowly. She could see a white pinprick of light in the back of his eyes, not unlike the light her own eyes glowed with. She stood transfixed by his gaze, until it was drawn to the ceiling. The softness melted from his expression, twisting into confusion. She turned, following his gaze until they landed on two glowing triangles that seemed to be suspended in the middle of the cavern. Above the glow, a smaller light flashed red. A dull beep filled the cavern in time with the pulses of light.

      “What is that?” He whispered.

      “I think…” she said slowly, “that is a tiny, adorable, flying cartographer.”

 

* * *

       

      By the time the storm had completely receded and the paladins plus two had picked their way carefully back to the cave, Shiro and Allura had readied themselves.

      Their undersuits were tattered beyond repair, but they still worked as fast as they could to tear the cloth into makeshift underwear for both of them and chest bindings for Allura. After a brief, hissed conversation, Shiro decided to try donning his armor even without the undersuit. Although Allura could barely see him now that panic had damped most of their post-coital glow, she could see enough of him to know that he looked completely ridiculous.

      “You look like a gladiator of loose morals," she observed.

      "Technically true. You look like you got lost on the way to a lingerie show for island castaways," Shiro retorted.

      "You look like a footsoldier in an army too poor to afford pants."

      "You look like you got tangled up in someone's macrame project and just decided to roll with it."

      "You look like you're going to star in an erotic parody of the Voltron show."

      “Good, because that's definitely the look I was going for."  He posed heroically for her consideration, with one foot poised on a rock, and his hand fisted on his hip. 

       "'It is I, the Hung Paladin of Voltporn!'” Shiro said dramatically, and Allura couldn’t stifle her laugher. She swooned dramatically, or as dramatically as she could on one foot, fanning herself with her hand.

      “Oh, Hung Paladin!  I must know, which part of Voltporn do you form?”

      Shiro wiggled his eyes suggestively, though the darkness made it hard for him to communicate smarminess nonverbally. He tugged on her waist, and she fell into his arms with a exaggerated sigh.

      “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,”  he said in a seductive purr. Allura shivered despite herself, unnerved at how _into_  their little pantomime she was getting. She reached up to stroke his face.

      “Shiro,” she began.

      And that was precisely  when the search party found them.

 

* * *

       

      The silence during their march back to the lions was almost as thick as the mud they had to trudge through. Occasionally someone would try to talk, but wouldn’t get much farther than the first syllable before the heavy atmosphere smothered the words in their mouth.

      Finally, Hunk said, “You seem to have done something different with your… selves.”

      “Are you talking about our new and improved outfits? I thought we’d try something new.” Allura asked, fixing Lance with a glare as she felt his eyes land on her exposed markings once again. He quickly looked away, whistling innocently at the sky.

      "Our clothes were torn in the fall. We had to get rid of them or risk hypothermia," Shiro explained patiently.

      “I’m just amazed you can walk with a wedgie that big,” Romelle observed. Allura turned her icy glare on her fellow Altean next, but Romelle seemed unaffected. She waved back cheerfully.

      “Stop staring at her ass! Pretend that it isn’t even there!” Pidge said with a slap to Romelle’s back.

      “Just like yours?” Romelle said. Pidge retaliated with more slaps, which Romelle returned with gusto.  Hunk separated the two by their collars with a long suffering sigh.

      “I love you both, you know I do, but I’d love you more if you would stop arguing over who gets to look at Allura’s butt,” he said.

      “You can fight over who gets to be the most useless lesbian later,” Keith agreed.

      “Romelle,” Pidge said at the same time Romelle said, “Me!”

      “Who cares? The point is, no one gets to look her butt!” Lance cried.

      “I can decide who gets to look at my butt myself, but thank you Lance.”

      "Should I feel jealous that nobody's worrying about my butt?" Shiro asked Allura in a stage-whisper.

      "No, it's good. Your butt is fine," Lance assured him. "Nothing to worry about there."

      "Thanks," said Shiro, puzzled but flattered.

      “Pay attention,” Krolia said sharply. “The ground is saturated. Landslides still can happen at any moment.”

      “We’re on a flat plane, though,” Pidge observed. “We’re in more danger of getting stuck in some mud.”

      “No excuse not to remain vigilant,” Krolia insisted. Keith snorted.

      "Just to get you up to speed," Hunk said to the recently rescued pair, "Keith is mad at mom."

      "I'm sure he's not--" began Shiro.

      "Oh yeah, I am," interrupted Keith.

      “Where’s Coran?” Allura asked.

      “We told him you guys were in another cave system,” Keith admitted.

      “Why?”

      Keith cast a long glance at Shiro. Shiro met his eyes with a tilt of his head, and Keith looked away first.

      “You don’t need to know why,” he said darkly. “Just make sure you’re not in the same lion as he is when we leave.”

      “Speaking of lions, can we address the elephant in the room?” Lance asked.

      “That phrase made no sense. Is it an earth saying?” Romelle asked.

      “No, not really,” Hunk answered.

      “I’m talking about why…” his courage only carried him as far as the fourth word of his question. He shook his head, turning his gaze back to the sky. “Why Shiro is wearing the white makeup?”

      “Um,” Shiro said, looking to Allura for guidance.  Allura tapped her cheekbones and then gestured to his.

      ‘You have markings now’, she mouthed. He tilted his head in confusion, and she tapped her cheeks again. She pointed to her markings,  made a small V gesture with her fore- and middle fingers, then again pointed to him. He reached up to feel his cheekbone, and his hand froze when he felt the familiar buzz of quintessence.

      “Shiro, Did you hear me? What’s with the face paint?”

      Neither Shiro nor Allura really had a good answer for that, but for some reason Shiro was glad that they were assuming it was makeup for now.

      “It’s not makeup, obviously,” Romelle pointed out. “We didn’t carry any with us to the caves, and we didn’t find any in the caches.”

      Then, her face blanched with dawning horror.

      “But there  _is_ something white that was in plentiful supply in those caverns…” She said ominously.

       _‘_ _Don’t say cum don’t say cum don’t say cum’._ Shiro chanted to himself.

      “Guano,” Romelle whispered.

      A stray gust of wind brought a dusting of yellow with it. The low moan of the wind was the only sound as the group collectively let that thought permeate in silence.

      “Romelle, it’s not guano,” Allura said at the same time that Shiro said, “It’s absolutely guano.”

      Allura glared at him and he shrugged his shoulders.

      “Oh, man. Here we were concerned that you could be dying and all this time you were getting literally shitfaced and doing fashion,” Lance groaned.

      “It’s  _not_ gua--” Allura began again, but a look from Shiro silenced her protests.

      The wind picked up, and Hunk sneezed.

      “Uh, guys…” he said, turning to look at the direction the wind was originating from.

      “Don’t tell me,”  Lance said, “that if I were to look behind myself right now, that I would see a cloud of yellow on the horizon.”

      “Okay, I won’t, but--”

      “Run,” Krolia said, and grabbed Keith’s arm as she took off towards the lions.

      “Pollen swell!” Pidge cried. The wind whipped around them, carrying more yellow particles with it. Pidge began sneezing convulsively even as she started to run.

      “This planet sucks! Why don’t you people ever go to a planet that doesn’t suck!” Romelle cried as she struggled to run through the sucking mud. Pidge doubled back to grab her hand, pulling her through the muck and quickly catching back up to Hunk.

      “Carry her!” Pidge yelled at Hunk. “She’s super slow!”

      “Hey, no! I can run! I don’t have to be carried like some pampered princ--” Romelle’s protest was cut off with a glare from Allura, from where she had been thrown over Shiro’s shoulder.

      “I didn’t mean it!” Romelle shouted through the yellow haze.

       

* * *

 

 

      Back in the safety of the Blue lion, Shiro examined his face in the mirror.

      All around his feet were squares of discarded hygienic cloth, caked with mud and pollen. He could clean those up later, cleaning himself  _now_ took priority. He wiped his hand across the mirror as fog condensed on it. He tilted his head this way and that, examining the new markings on his face.

      He looked  _weird._ Like he was in some sort of half-finished cosplay. The white hair, and the scar, and the markings; they made him look like a cut-rate JRPG villain.

      “Allura,” he said loudly, not taking his eyes off his reflection. “Do I look like the sort of guy who’d burn down a quaint peasant village for no good reason to you?”

      The sound of the Lion’s jury rigged emergency-turned-non-emergency shower ceased. Allura poked her head from around the curtain.

      “Huh?” she asked.

      “Do I look like I’m always one second away from dropping a rant about false dichotomies of good and evil?” He said, turning to look at her.

      She squinted at him through the fog of the makeshift bathroom.

      “A little bit, yes.”

      “Shit. Just as I suspected,” he said, turning his attention back to his reflection.

      He heard the curtain close behind him, but instead of the noise of shower water immediately reactivating, he heard the soft, shuffling pad of her feet approaching her.

      He watched her push herself up on her tiptoes in the mirror, and then grow slightly when that extra height still wasn’t enough for her to hook her chin over his shoulder. He sighed as her warm, wet arms encircled his bare waist.

      “You look good,” she said softly.

      “I hardly look human anymore.”

      Allura kissed him on the cheek.

      “Does proof of your humanity lie in the color of your hair, or your skin?” She asked. He shook his head.

      “Do these scars erase who you are?” She asked, running her fingers lightly over where they criss-crossed his torso.

      “No,” he said.

      “Are you any less now than what you were before? Will you let your losses define you?”

      He looked his reflection in the eyes. The eyes that looked back at him were sharp, focused. They glowed with a subtle white light. His gaze slid to the scar that ran across his nose, and down to his missing arm.

      “No,” he whispered, “I’m not. I won’t.”

      “I know it doesn’t really matter what I think, not really, but for what it’s worth,” She said softly, pulling him into a full embrace. He leaned back into her arms, letting her support his weight, “I look at you, and I see something extraordinary.”

      He turned in her arms, and lowered his mouth to hers.

      “You’re the extraordinary one,” he said after they parted for air. “You speak about not letting loss define you as if you’re not the universe’s foremost expert.”  She snorted dismissively in response.

      He ran his hand through her heavy, wet hair as it dripped on the bathroom floor. She leaned into the contact and sighed. He let his hand drift from her hair, to her markings.

      “I wish I could share something of myself with you, like you shared yourself with me,” he said quietly. Allura snorted again.

      “What would you give, your hideous ears?”

      “Wow, ouch,” he deadpanned.

      “How about that adorable mole on your left cheek?”

      “I don’t have a mole on my cheek.”

      She reached down and squeezed his ass.

      “Wrong cheek,” she said, smirking. Shiro laughed, and kissed her again. She moaned into his mouth, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hopping closer on her good foot. The impact of her foot on the floor seemed to reverberate through the lion with a dull _thunk_. She froze, puzzled.

      “Wow. You didn’t feel that heavy when I carried you. Did you just have a big meal in the shower or...?”

      “Shut up, Shiro.”

      Then they heard another  _thunk_. It wasn’t the sound of a foot hitting the metal, it sounded more like someone pounding at the door. She quickly pulled up a security feed on the bathroom’s access panel.

      Shiro groaned when he saw an image of Coran knocking on the personnel access door outside the lion. He cut a pathetic figure, caked in pollen and sneezing as he knocked desperately. Allura watched him for a few seconds, before closing the feed.

      “Okay,” she said expressionlessly. “Let’s launch the lion.”

      “Allura, we have to let him in.”

      “Someone else can pick him up! Lance can! He likes Lance! He won’t kill Lance if he answers the door in a towel.”

      “He might  _die!”_

      “Not before he kills you!”

      “I’m opening the door,” he said firmly. Allura quickly secured a towel around herself, then grabbed his arm and tried to stop him. For all of her strength her shower-slick foot still couldn’t find purchase on the smooth metal of the floor. He dragged her with him as she cried in protest.

      The door opened with a puff of yellow air. Shiro raised his hand in greeting as Allura hung dejectedly from his bicep.

      “Hey, man,” He said casually.

      Coran took one step inside the Lion, paused, took in the scene before him, turned around mechanically and walked right back out. The door slid shut behind him.

      “Christ,” said Shiro, pressing the button to open the door back up. Allura slammed her hand on the close button the minute he released it.

      “Allura,” he admonished.

      “He made his decision! If he dies now, he dies with honor!”

 

* * *

     

      It only took a few weak knocks for Lance to open the door and admit Coran, almost as if he’d been expecting the older man. He had drug out the Altean version of a folding chair and set it up by the Pilot seat, and a variety of nearly alcoholic beverages stood at standby. To Coran’s surprise, Keith was leaning up against Red's instrument panel like he belonged there. Which, in a way, he did. Keith raised a bottle of something or another in his direction in greeting. Coran collapsed gratefully into the chair.

      “Do you want to talk about it?” Lance asked.

      “The worst thing about the fact that it happened,” Coran said, “Is that it happened.”

      “I’ll drink to that,” Keith said, and they did.

       


End file.
